This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Excuse the pun title, I couldn't resist. This movie Salvage Mice (2011) is about two girls both about 22 years old who are from different parts of Japan. The "thief" Mai (Mitsuki Tanimura from The Girl Who Leaped Through Time and 13 Assassins) traveled to (The Martial Artist's) Mio's (Julia Nagano) hometown to recover some "treasure" that was stolen. Mio can't tell if Mai is good or bad until near the end of the film. The two develop a friendship and share their skills as fighters and eventually combine that skill to fight the real "bad" or villain. Of course the "bad" is a white American guy who barely speaks Japanese, because Japanese film makers love to villainize that gender and race...but it isn't like American film makers don't do it back to the Japanese anyways... of did in the 1970-1990s. In this movie however, this is done poorly and cliché, but the movie is still fun to watch if you like female heroines and action films with silly characters who can fight.