Kids Return review

In 1994, during the prime of his directorial career, Takeshi Kitano was in a near-fatal motorcycle accident which rendered the left side of his body paralyzed. Through extensive therapy he was able to recover from the accident, which he later admitted was a suicide attempt. His first project after the crash was Kids Return, and understandably it represented a more introspective departure for him from his earlier, more stylistically violent work. Although there is some violence throughout, it in no way seems like it’s injected in for shock value. It just is what it is because the storyline happens to arrive there, and it’s through Kitano’s minimalist approach to directing that this film seems to have a life of its own in that way. There are no messages being beaten over our heads or crazy plot twists. There are just lives being lived.

Masaru (Ken Kaneko) and Shinji (Masanobu Ando) are two juvenile delinquents in their senior year of high school. Their teachers have long-since given up on teaching them anything and simply want them to either leave the other students alone or quit school—they don’t care which. Instead, Masaru and Shinji spend their school days playing pranks, shaking down students for lunch money, or performing really lame manzai routines. It’s a simple existence, but they don’t really have many goals to look forward to.

One day, two of the kids they regularly rob bring a boxer with them who proceeds to pummel Masaru in the span of about 3 seconds. Embarrassed, Masaru decides to take boxing lessons and convinces Shinji to join him. When it becomes evident Shinji is more naturally talented at boxing, Masaru quits and joins the local yakuza gang. Shinji continues with his training and becomes quite good at it. He wins several fights easily and seems to be on his way to the top. Unfortunately he gets taken under the wing of an older, more cynical boxer who teaches him all sorts of easy—and completely self-destructive—ways to cut down weight quickly.

There are several other “loser” characters from their high school class along the periphery of the film who each end up going different directions in their lives, including a group of kids that idolize Masaru and Shinji, emulating pretty much everything they do—while simultaneously adding some comic relief—and two other kids who put together a really bad manzai routine to very little fanfare. More substantially, there’s Reiko (Atsuki Ueda), the hopeless romantic that marries his longtime crush Sachiko (Yuko Daike) and decides to forgo college to get a job in the corporate world, only to find he completely despises everything about it. When one of his co-workers convinces him to abruptly quit and become a taxi driver it soon becomes apparent he can’t support his wife on those wages. This is probably the most depressing aspect of the film and shows that people can go all sorts of different directions in life, no matter how mundane those choices may seem, and still end up with problems.

At this point it’s been several years and Masaru has quickly risen in the yakuza ranks. Unfortunately his brash attitude keeps getting him into trouble and the yakuza are not quite as apathetic as his teachers were. Meanwhile, Shinji is starting to feel the effects of all the bad habits he’s developed. By chance, the two main characters reunite and in a quaint little scene that somehow manages to wrap everything up while simultaneously leaving everything completely open they compare notes about all the things they’ve been through and where they’re going.

The part that sticks with you after watching this film is that the two main characters show the perseverance to go on, even though it would be easy to give up on themselves and submit to the notion that their futures are worthless. Things may not change for the better (or in some cases, at all) but living life and going wherever it takes you becomes a goal in and of itself, regardless of successes or failures along the way. It’s actually a pretty thoughtful and poignant message in today’s competition-driven society, and is probably the main reason most people hold this film up as Kitano’s best. I tend to agree.

Watch trailer

Availability: US distributor Image Entertainment released "Kids Return" on region 1 DVD on December 12, 2000. However, that release has mercifully gone out of print (it was really, really ugly). For now, your best bet is to pick up the all-region Korean version from HKFlix (link). It has English subtitles, a theatrical trailer, anamorphic widescreen, and really nice picture quality.

Tags