Fujino, a countryside girl who effortlessly sketched four-panel mangas for the school newspaper with brilliant talent and pride, is deeply shaken by the overwhelming drawing skills of Kyomoto, a shut-in recluse who doesn’t even attend school. Connected solely by their shared passion for manga, the two become irreplaceable companions running toward their dreams together, only to face unexpected crossroads in life. In this live-action adaptation of Fujimoto Tatsuki’s manga Look Back, master director Koreeda Hirokazu teams up with rising stars Deguchi Natsuki and Makita Aju to craft an aching narrative. The spatial direction, delicately preserving the distinct sensibility of the original work, along with the passage of time captured in the transition from analog pen lines to graphics tablets, breathes realistic vitality into the film. In particular, the parallel-world sequence in the climactic second half leaves an overwhelming afterimage and emotional resonance that surpasses the original. It stands as a delicate, weighty coming-of-age chronicle that embraces radiant friendship, the joy of creation, and the bittersweet pain of tender parting.
Koreeda Hirokazu was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1962. After graduating from Waseda University and directing TV documentaries, he made his feature film debut with Maborosi (1995). He subsequently directed After Life (1998) and Distance (2001), and his fourth work, Nobody Knows (2004), earned Yagira Yuya the award for Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival, making him the youngest winner in the festival′s history. He won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Like Father, Like Son (2013) and the Palme d′Or for Shoplifters (2018). With Broker (2022), Song Kang-ho won Best Actor at Cannes, and with Monster (2023), Sakamoto Yuji won Best Screenplay at Cannes. His new film, Look Back, was invited to the Competition section of the Venice Film Festival.
From Busan International Film Festival 2026, No. 31
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