This is a review of the 1995 Japanese film "Love Letter".
Love Letter stars Miho Nakayama playing two roles, Hiroko Watanabe and Itsuki Fujii. Hiroko Watanabe is a woman whose boyfriend, also called Itsuki Fujii, died climbing a mountain whilst singing a Seiko Matsuda song. The film starts off with her attending a memorial service for him. She obtains what she thinks is his address from his middle school graduation book, and writes him a letter, not expecting to get a reply. However she has mistakenly sent the letters to a woman with the same name, a librarian in Otaru in Hokkaido. The two women write to each other including many misunderstandings.
At the end of the film, Itsuki is given a drawing of herself by the boy Itsuki that he had made when they were both doing library duty.
Miho Nakayama won two acting awards for this film. But I have no idea why. Miho Nakayama is beautiful but has little acting ability. A large part of her performance consists of either smiling with her lips closed, raising her eyebrows, or moving her eyeballs right and then left again. Many of the shots of her are taken from behind. The other members of the cast all seem to have to work rather hard to make up for her.
Han Bunjaku plays Itsuki's mother Akiko. Etsushi Toyokawa plays a glass blower who was a friend of the dead man who is now romantically interested in Hiroko. Ryudo Uzaki lookalike Sansei Shiomi plays yet another crusty friend of the male Itsuki, who reminisces about the dead fellow in a way guaranteed to pluck at our heartstrings. Sexy Miki Sakai plays the young Itsuki, even though she doesn't look anything like Miho Nakayama. The boy Itsuki, a sullen yet determined lad who enters a 100 m sprint with a broken leg, is played by Katsuyuki Shinohara. Mariko Kaga plays the male Itsuki's mother, who seems to have little else to do with herself than to endlessly butter up Miho Nakayama's character Hiroko Watanabe. Katsuyuki Shinohara plays female Itsuki's grandfather, who lifts Itsuki up and takes her to the hospital when snowed in so much that an ambulance can't reach their home.
The film as released in Japan comes with English subtitles, which are translated into rather unnatural English.