Genre: Fantasy/Drama
Director: Takahiko Akiyama
Starring: Kanata Hongo, Mikako Tabe, Maki Horikita, Ryoko Kobayashi, Yuta Murakami
RunTime: 1 hr 51 mins
Released By: VideoVan & Golden Village
Rating: PG
Official Website: http://www.shochikufilms.com

Release Date: 15 September 2005

Synopsis :

HINOKIO is not a movie about robots. It is a story of the heart, of using a remotely controlled robot that can interface with the real world to restore the relationships that had become broken, to build bonds between a boy and a girl, a boy and his father.

Satoru, a heartbroken boy who had withdrawn into his room, who uses a remotely controlled robot called HINOKIO as a next-generation communication tool that provides him with a window on the world. Using that robot ‘tool’, Satoru is able to make progress by taking his first cautious, fearful steps out into the outside world… steps taken from within his ‘digital cocoon’. Still, he does go to school, find fellowship and through an encounter with a girl, is able to reconnect and feel once again the sensation of warm human touch.

Satoru eventually seeks to directly experience the world and activates the robot’s sensation mode, exposing himself to mortal threat. The girl Jun, risks all by taking action in an attempt to rescue him. This movie is not just about humans considering each other with warm affections; it is a movie that, through the conduct of humans finding love, asks the very question “What is it to be alive?”

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Subtitle: English