Break Through!


Break Through! is a 2005 Japanese film directed by Kazuyuki Izutsu.

Plot

Romeo, A.K.A. Kosuke Matsuyama, is a second-year high school student. A nice, normal, nonviolent type, he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a rampaging crowd of Korean boys, outraged by insults perpetrated by several of his idiotic classmates on two Korean girls. He makes a narrow escape, but soon after, he and his best bud Yoshio are sent by their home-room teacher to invite the Korean students to a friendly soccer game as a way of restoring the peace.
Trembling like black-uniformed leaves, they enter enemy territory, where Kosuke encounters a doll-faced, but serious-looking girl playing a Korean folk song, "Imjin River," on a flute. He and Yoshio are also nearly lynched by her older brother Lee Ang Son and his gang, but he is already smitten—and eager to learn that haunting tune.
The story concentrates on Kosuke's struggle to not only master a song, but win the love of a girl who seems to live in an alien, hostile world. Meanwhile, Ang Son and his crew are street-fighting with Japanese toughs as if playing a contact sport, with one side scoring hits, then the other. He is macho to a fault, but when he learns that his sweet-heart is pregnant and determined to keep the baby, he faces a choice that makes him quail: grow up or cop out.

Awards

48th Blue Ribbon Awards
27th Yokohama Film Festival