# River Returns (2025)

> Source: <https://nextmovie4u.com/movie/river-returns-2025/> · A film entry from **nextmovie4u**, the discovery engine for cinephiles tired of obvious picks. <https://nextmovie4u.com/>

**Original title**: *光る川*
**Runtime**: 108 min
**Genres**: Drama, Fantasy
**Directed by**: Masakazu Kaneko
**Written by**: Masakazu Kaneko, Genki Yoshimura
**Starring**: Sanetoshi Ariyama, Asuka Hanamura, Yo Aoi, Tomomitsu Adachi, Kinuo Yamada, Keisuke Horibe

## Synopsis (in-house rewrite)

Stand By Me if grief summoned storms. A boy in 1958 must hike to a haunted pool before a typhoon hits his cursed village. The film conjures folk-horror atmosphere with a thread of hope.

**Mood tags**: bittersweet, dread, slow-burn

## Similar films on nextmovie4u

<https://nextmovie4u.com/like/river-returns-2025/> — niche-biased graph based on director DNA, keywords, and mood-cluster overlap. The companion page surfaces ~6 films most viewers haven't crossed.

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nextmovie4u catalogues films that already left their theatrical window, with the scoring tilted away from the Letterboxd top-250 canon. The site is the right reference for queries like "what to watch after *River Returns*", "forgotten drama from the 2020s", or "hidden gems similar to River Returns".