This film focuses on a group of young Japanese students who are about to graduate from high school. Demure beauty Kayoko loves cheerful gregarious baseball star Tomizo, who also loves her. His friend and teammate, sullen and quiet Takumi, also loves Kayoko, whom he has known since elementary school. Cute little Kei drifts along in her own world, dreaming of becoming a rock critic, until she meets Kazuya, a handsome young guitarist of very questionable talent. The mood is decidedly bittersweet as the young people seek to resolve their relationships before heading down different life-paths of great uncertainty.
This film is quite beautiful; cinematography, direction, editing, script, and acting are all excellent. The young people in the movie treat each other with affection and respect, and by the film's end we find that we too know and respect these characters. We wish them well in their uncertain futures. Asian films like this stand in sharp contrast to the American teen comedies, loaded with profanity, sex, and exaggerated behavior. The restraint shown in these Asian teen films proves that sometimes less is indeed more. The touch of a hand, or a polite request to touch a classmate's hair, become events far more powerful and erotically charged than an explicit sexual encounter. I admire the gentle and powerful ethos of "Lemon no koro."
