My Impressions of Orange

(Picture used from: http://asianwiki.com/Orange_(Japanese_Movie)

I recently watched a Japanese movie called Orange that was released December 2015. It starred Tao Tsuchiya and Kento Yamazaki with co-stars Ryo Ryusei, Hirona Yamazaki, Dori Sakurada, and Kurumi Shimizu. The movie is adapted from the manga of the same name by the mangaka, Ichigo Takano. The overall plot of the story is Naho Takemiya (Tao Tsuchiya) receives a letter from herself that was written 10 years into the future that details her school life of that year in hopes of erasing any regrets that she felt during that time in her life. One of her friends, Kakeru Naruse (Kento Yamazaki) passes away a year later and she hopes that her letter arrives in the past in time for her past self to change the future and save Kakeru's life. That's the premise of the movie without revealing anymore details about the story.

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie and despite having a run time of 2 hour and 17 minutes, I was engaged the entire time. It didn't feel long at all, and felt perfect in its pacing as the plot move forward and the development of the main characters was well done in my opinion. It takes it time to develop the main characters and doesn't rush the story. It is also helped by the good acting of the two main leads (Tao Tsuchiya and Kento Yamazaki). Their co-stars also did well as well and it helped made me feel for the characters' pain, sadness, and happiness. The cinematography and music were good as well. The music matched the scenes well and it didn't overpower some of the scenes and the actors. I really like the cinematography and some of the angles that they shot some important scenes in the middle of the movie that made it more interesting. It made for a picture-esque photo if I screenshot at the particular second in those scenes.

It really was a tearjerker and at key scenes of the movie, I was in tears and a runny nose from the sobbing. The acting, music, cinematography as I said earlier help make me feel for the characters and have me care about Kakeru and what he is going through. The movie really hints at the romantic couple of Naho and Kakeru, but if she was to do it alone, I don't think she would have been successful in saving Kakeru's life (or does she? Dun dun dun). It has to be the efforts of everyone in the group that made their friendship shine through to Kakeru. That's what I like most about the story, and it didn't really depend on a sole person.

I've never read the manga so I can't say about how faithful the movie is to the source material, but going by some of the comments online, it seemed that the movie capture the essence of the original manga. It has an anime coming soon, so maybe I'll check either the anime or manga as well if I want to cry some more, haha. If you're a fan of the manga, or like feel-good type of stories with friendship and camaraderie, or tearjerkers, then I recommend you give this movie a watch.