Hana no Ato

Upon entering high school, two best friends named Hana and Alice notice a boy a year older them while waiting for the train, and they both develop a pretty strong crush on him. One day while secretly following him home, Hana witnesses the boy walk right into a wall and pass out. When he wakes up, she lies and convinces him that he must have amnesia, because he doesn't remember the fact that she was his girlfriend. After this, hilarity ensues as the two girls attempt to run with the lie. Of course, complications soon arise.

Koreeda turns the popularly held conventions of the typical samurai tale on their head in this story of a man whose quest to avenge the death of his father gradually takes a back seat to his emerging role as a key figure in the community. The year is 1702, and young samurai Sozaemon Aoki has arrived in a poor neighbourhood of Edo seeking revenge against the man responsible for the death of his father. But when Aoki takes on the task of teaching the children of Edo to read and write, his bloodlust starts to subside, and even more after he falls in love with the beautiful widow Osae. Aoki must decide whether to follow the way of the samurai or to choose peace and reconciliation….