‘Three Millimeters to You’: A hokey but heartfelt tale of cross-cultural first love

Kyushu high schooler Tatsuhiko (Soya Kurokawa, left) falls in love with Yoon-seul (Kim Ji-an), a South Korean exchange student, in Chun Jin-rung’s “Three Millimeters to You.” | © 2026 “THREE MILLIMETERS TO YOU” FILM PARTNERS

Nov 11, 2026

Teenagers in the first flush of love can do the darnedest things. Tatsuhiko (Soya Kurokawa) is an unambitious high schooler living in a sleepy coastal town in Kyushu, southern Japan, who falls hard for visiting South Korean exchange student Yoon-seul (Kim Ji-an).

They embark on a tentative courtship, only for her to suddenly get whisked back to her native Busan after parting on less-than-amicable terms. Determined to make amends in person, Tatsuhiko pulls out a ruler and measures a map in his textbook to determine the distance between their respective homes: just three millimeters! He initially tries to swim it, then elects to take the ferry instead.

Yes, we’re firmly in seishun eiga (youth film) territory, a genre in which no expression of adoration is too ridiculous, as long as it doesn’t involve the characters getting past first base.

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