Hana & Alice (DTS Version) (2 Disc Special Edition) (Taiwan Version) DVD Region 3

Hana and Alice (short for her last name Arisugawa) are the best of friends in junior high school. Alice is the free spirit who acts on her impulses, and Hana's penchant to follow happens to complement her perfectly. One morning, Alice leads Hana on a trip to a strange train station, where they begin to spy on a tall foreign man and someone they presume to be his Japanese younger brother. While a random conversation about Hannibal Lecter would end Alice's schoolgirl crush (Iwai's sense of humor works in mysterious ways), Hana would encounter the young Japanese man, named Miyamoto, again when she joins the Japanese comedy club in high school. Instantly taking a liking to Miyamoto, she begins to follow him after school when he accidentally bangs his head against a metal gate. Hana immediately seizes the opportunity and tells Miyamoto that he has not only suffered amnesia, but also that he is dating her (a new addition that was not in the short films).

Despite his skepticism, Miyamoto plays along until he discovers the pictures Hana took months earlier during her stalking sessions with Alice. Suddenly, Hana has turned Alice into Miyamoto's ex-girlfriend, whom he has also supposedly forgotten, thanks to his "amnesia." As Miyamoto tries to put together his "lost" past with Alice, Alice realizes that she, too, has started to like him. However, Alice has issues of her own - her divorced mother would rather spend more time dating than parenting; her father treats her well, but rarely sees her; and she has been scouted by a talent agency, even though her acting skill is next to nil.

While the short films emphasized the love triangle elements, Hana and Alice is ultimately about the creation of a past. As Hana's deception goes farther and farther, Hana is forced to create more and more details about not one, but two relationships that never existed. She eventually makes up so many lies that she even begins to believe that Miyamoto is really her boyfriend. On the other hand, Hana believes she deserves Miyamoto in the short film simply because she met him first. Even though the short film contains the same scenes featured in the feature film, Hana and Alice the short films and Hana and Alice the feature film are two different creatures altogether.

However, does this new element help Hana and Alice? Yes and no. While the new additions not only thankfully expand considerably on Alice's background, it also adds context to the Hana-Miyamoto-Alice relationship so that it's not simply another high school puppy love romance. The bad news is that, even as the main conflict of the film, the love triangle in Hana and Alice has softened considerably. Since Alice is now a part of Hana's deception, the only real conflicts of the story (Who will get Miyamoto? Will Miyamoto lighten up? Can the girls can any cuter?) have lost much to look forward to. Moreover, the film also loses its balance between the two leads by adding only major details to Alice's background. In the end, even though Alice's story is one of the strong points of the film, the character of Hana has been reduced to a young con artist who'll do anything for love.

Nevertheless, the two leads are absolutely charming. Hana and Alice comes alive whenever the two share the screen thanks to their chemistry. They have such rapport playing best friends that it's hard to imagine they are anything less than that in real life. Of course, the fact that they're playing their own age didn't hurt either. What's even better is that the two leads are just as good on their own. Anne Suzuki gives an enchanting performance as the head-over-heels in love Hana. Even though her character edged on being one-note, she still had a few good dramatic moments occasionally. However, it's Yu Aoi as Alice that has some of the film's best moments, including a memorable dance performance in the end. While Tomohiro Kaku's deadpan Miyamoto takes some time to get used to, he eventually left a favorable impression upon me as well. Then again, his character could've been better written in the first place.

The crew behind the camera is excellent as well. Every technical detail in Hana and Alice is probably helped by the fact that Iwai did not only write and direct the film, but also composed the music and edited the entire film as well. On their final collaboration, cinematographer Noboru Shinoda (who passed away before the film's release) stunningly retained Iwai's signature soft lighting from film to digital. The result is a teenage fairy tale given a truly magical atmosphere that is rarely seen in Western films.

At 45 minutes, the short films were also filled with charm and that high school girl cuteness. Iwai has always paid attention to the details, even in a simple conversation scene on a train platform when the girls started practicing random ballet forms mid-conversation. However, at 135 minutes, Hana and Alice is ultimately too many details and too little story. Even when Iwai adds deception and fabricated past into the plot, it feels like a graduate philosophy course for high school - the idea is there, but it feels out of place. In the end, Hana and Alice is a beautifully made and enjoyably charming story about the strength of friendship, but not much else.

by Kevin Ma