To Walk Beside You (2009)

To Walk Beside You is a Japanese movie written and directed by Yuya Ishii. It premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival on October 18, 2009 and was released publicly by Mobcast in Japan on May 15, 2010.

The film stars Ryu Morioka as a 17-year-old country boy named Norio who decides his only option is to follow his late parents’ example and commit suicide. After failing even at that, his 34-year-old English teacher Akemi (Maki Meguro) convinces him that he should instead move to Tokyo with her and become a lawyer on her dime.

Unfortunately, Akemi doesn’t have quite as much money as she leads Norio to believe, and has to secretly get a job at a karaoke bar under the guise of “going to the salon”. Meanwhile, she continuously prods her somewhat dimwitted student to work harder toward her manufactured goal of him becoming a lawyer.

Although Norio is falling in love with Akemi, he’s not all that interested in studying, and matters only get worse when he discovers his benefactor’ss secret source of income.