“Love Letter” marks the theatrical debut of Shunji Iwai’s filmmaking career, the director of such critically acclaimed pictures as “Picnic” (1996), “Swallowtail Butterfly” (1996), and “All About Lily Chou-Chou” (2001). It became an immediate hit in the Japanese box-office. Additionally, it was one of the first Japanese productions to be shown in South Korean cinemas since the end of World War II. Among its many prizes, the film won three Japanese Academy Awards in 1996.

Hiroko Watanabe (Miho Nakayama) is a woman living in the city of Kobe. Two years earlier, her fiancé Itsuki Fujii (Takashi Kashiwabara) died in a mountain climbing accident. Still in depression and grief, Hiroko writes a letter to her dead fiancé and sends it to the address she found in his old high-school yearbook. However, it was the wrong Itsuki Fujii she found. The mail reaches Otaru, a northern town far away from Kobe, and...