The film spans the ten-year period from 1996 to 2006, and it stars Yui Aragaki as Sae, a high school student who later grows into a young adult.

[3] Toma Ikuta also stars in this film, playing the role of Kouhei, Sae's boyfriend and an aspiring fisherman.

It begins in the year 2005 when Sae is traveling to her birthplace of Peggys Cove, Nova Scotia in Canada.

Sae and Kouhei met on a train ride to their respective college entrance examinations.

However, when Kouhei tried to overtake a slow cow truck, he narrowly avoided an incoming crane, and went off the road into a ditch.

At Waseda University, Sae met Kitami Junichi, a senior who likes taking pictures of children in third world countries.

He helps Sae find a night job teaching English at a cram school and became good friends with her.

On his way, a group of delinquent youths knocked down a box that contained Kouhei's present for Sae, and mocked him.

Kouhei is then unable to leave for Tokyo, as he had to take care of his mother and younger sister.

Sae returned to Kushiro to attend her friend Minami's wedding, and she found out that Kouhei was married to Ritsuko.

Having seen each other after such a long time, they can't resist anymore and they embrace each other passionately in front of Sae's house while dropping her off, but their responsibilities towards their better halves (in her case, her fiancé) force them to reluctantly part ways.

When Kouhei returned, he found Ritsuko waiting for him on the steps with bad news - the bank might make them bankrupt.

Kouhei manages to settle the problem, but he found Ritsuko's divorce papers on the table when he returned.

[11] In New York, it was filmed at the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Heights Promenade and Union Square.

"[13] Hanamizuki director Nobuhiro Doi said that after completing the filming across three countries, he felt "nothing but relief" and thanked the cast for having gone through the long journey with him.

[21] Hanamizuki debuted on 310 cinema screens around Japan, where it became the highest-grossing film on the weekend of 21–22 August 2010 with a record gross of over ¥400 million, and at the same time breaking Studio Ghibli's film The Secret World of Arrietty four consecutive week hold on the top position in the Japanese box office.

[24] The Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan put its domestic gross at ¥2.83 billion, making it the 12th highest-grossing Japanese film of 2010.

[19] Over its run of three weeks, it grossed a total of $56,268 in Taiwanese cinemas, making it the second-highest-grossing territory after Japan.

[2] Before the film release, Asahi Shimbun wrote in an article that Hanamizuki was a "modest masterpiece of the Yō Hitoto's work", and that it makes the audience want to cry.