Few directors capture childhood with more fidelity, insight and lack of sentimentality than Hirokazu Koreeda, and he depicts its hopes, joys and bitter disappointments with typically acute detachment in this delightful adventure. Twelve-year-old Koichi (Koki Maeda) lives with his mother Nozomi (Nene Ohtsuka) and grandparents in the Japanese city of Kagoshima, which is dominated by a smouldering volcano. The boy dreams of reuniting his family, sorely missing younger brother Ryunosuke (Maeda's real-life brother, Ohshiro), who lives in the north with their musician father Kenji (Joe Odagiri). Koichi becomes convinced that passing bullet trains have the power to grant wishes, and he persuades Ryunosuke to venture across the country to test the myth. The Maeda boys (an established comedy duo in their own country) excel in their roles as the contrasting siblings, but it's Koreeda's subtly elliptical storytelling and measured control of character, locale and pace that makes this so engaging.