"Halfway" ("Harufuwei") has one of those katakana titles that is supposed to sound vaguely exotic and mysterious to its intended audience — Japanese of about the same age as its teenage protagonists — but may strike native speakers as prosaic, even boring.
The most obvious interpretation: The film's two young lovers, both seniors at a high school in Hokkaido, are halfway to adulthood. What else could it mean?
Written and directed by Eriko Kitagawa, a veteran TV-drama scriptwriter with a long string of hits (some with katakana titles such as "Long Vacation," ["Rongu Bakeshon"], [1996], "Beautiful Life," ["Byutifuru Raifu — Futari de ita Hibi,"] [2000] and "Orange Days" [Orenji Deizu] [2004]), the film is halfway in another sense: Coproducer Shunji Iwai not only initiated the film but also was its co-editor together with Kitagawa. Iwai, whose films as a director include such acclaimed seishun eiga (youth films) as "Hana and Alice" ("Hana to Arisu") (2004) and All About Lily Chou Chou, ("Ririi Shushu no Subete") (2001), has had a clear impact on its style, from its hand-held camera work to its jumpy editing. As well, Iwai worked with the film's cinematographer, Shinichi Tsunoda, on his 2006 documentary on director Kon Ichikawa.