The Foreigner's Melody

Lost Star is a 2003 animated romantic fantasy comedy-drama action film directed by Tatsuya Hironaka and produced by Shinichi Ikeda, Tomonori Ochikoshi and Seaton McLean. Starring the voices of Shane Kippel, Hilary Duff, George Hearn, Minnie Driver, Jason Bateman, Michael Rhys, Robert Tinkler and Christina Schmidt, the film focuses on student Rokura Machi (Alistair Morris in the English version), who, during a commotion with a humanoid entity (George Hearn), suddenly meets and saves a girl (Hilary Duff) from the entity, who he names Hikari (Eloise in the English version). It turns out this girl is really from another world who came to Earth in the form of a star, and the entity is a "Demon of the Night" named Gideon, who goes around Earth slaughtering it's inhabitants to try and increase his lifespan, and he intends to capture her in order to use her lifeforce to become immortal.

Hironaka got the idea for the film in 1995, and pitched it to J.C.Staff a year later. After he directed the On the Ropes segment for the British anthology movie London Stories, he decided to depart from the convential production of anime films and not only seek funding from foreign parties, but also have the film be produced in English to try and increase potential revenue. The film was financed Japanese companies Denstu, Inc and J.C.Staff, Canadian film and television company Alliance Atlantis, British production company HandMade Films and American production company Echo Lake Entertainment.

Japanese band SPEED performed the song Be My Love for the film's Japanese release, whilst Irish band Westlife performed Don't Let Me Go for the film's Western release. The film had it's world premiere at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, Canada on September 20, 2003, and was released to Japanese theaters by Movie-Eye Entertainment, Inc. on October 11, 2003, and in the United States and Canada by New Line Cinema and Alliance Atlantis on February 6, 2004. Critical reviews were generally positive, with praise towards the animation and voice acting, though some criticized the film's story. The film also grossed $65 million against a $20 million budget. Despite the film's underperformance, it would get a cult following after following it's home video release and through TV broadcasts on HBO.

Release
Lost Star had it's world premiere at the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto, Canada on September 20, 2003. People invited to the showing included anime fans, as well as other actors and producers. The film then had it's Japanese theatrical release on October 11, 2003, through foreign and independent film distributor Movie-Eye Entertainment, Inc. Canadian distributor Alliance Atlantis intended to give the film a North American theatrical release in November of 2003, and had presented the film to New Line Cinema and Miramax Films for distribution in the United States; after New Line secured the distribution rights, the release date was moved to February 6, 2004 as New Line would've been releasing Elf that month.

Home media
On August 10, 2004, Lost Star was released on VHS and DVD by New Line Home Entertainment in the United States and by Alliance Atlantis in Canada. Bonus features on the DVD release include the movie's US theatrical trailer, a music video for Don't Let Me Go, a making of featurette, multi-angle scene comparisons, actor interviews, production notes and a gallery. Warner Home Video released the film on Blu-ray for it's 10th anniversary on November 12, 2013.

In Japan, the film was released on DVD by VAP on August 25, 2004. This release contains both English and Japanese audio tracks.