Yes, a much more lighter and "friendlier" drama than the much disturbing but beautiful "All About Lily Chou Chou" where Yu Aoi
made her feature film debut in 2001. "Hana & Alice" is a delightful little drama about the friendship between 2 teenage girls and
also somewhat (just a little) flimsy and quirky more in the style of Iwai's 1998 "April Story".

Hana (Anne Suzuki) and Alice (Yu Aoi) are 15 years old and best friends. Hana falls in love with the boy Miyamoto who thinks he's
suffering from Amnesia, and also Alice likes him too. Alice is the cute extrovert and Hana the more of an introvert, and both of the
girls are dancing ballet. Alice is contacted by a talent scout and starts going to auditions for model jobs.

Note: 2022-07-10: To be honest i don't remember that much of this film since it was almost 20 years since i watched it, and I definitely
needs to watch it again now in 2022. In 2004 i had just seen the enormously powerful "All About Lily Chou Chou" and naturally
i felt like "Hana & Alice" was something of a letdown compared. In 2004 i felt that the film was a Takeshi Kitano - "Dolls" film.
I found the films romantic story and the whole amnesia thing to be very uninteresting.

I'm writing this in july 2022 and 18 years back i only found 2 scenes to be mildly interesting, one where Alice met her father, and one
where Alice dance the ballet for the photographers at an audition. In 2004 i was afraid of "Hana & Alice" being a turning point for
Shunji Iwai, as "Body Double", "Opera" and "Dead Ringers" became for directors as Brian De Palma, Dario Argento and David
Cronenberg, as Argento, De Palma and Cronenberg Never made a great and unique (DA and BDP) or non-arty (DC) film again, but
instead copied themselves in films continuosly deteriorating in quality.

But No, Iwai may never reach the hights of AALCC again (and that would be impossible anyway as Iwai's master Cinematographer
Noboru Shinoda has passed away) but he has made fine films also after 2004, as i.a. his quite unique "Vampire" in 2013 and his
2016 "A Bride for Rip Van Winkle". In 2015 Iwai made his free sequel to "Hana & Alice", the animated "The Case of Hana & Alice"

"The Case of Hana & Alice"

where Anne Suzuki and Yu Aoi return to their roles doing the voices of Hana and Alice (read more about this film at the top of this
Japanese Film page).
Panorama presented the film in anamorphic widescreen and with japanese audio 2.0 and with english subtitles, region 3 DVD