Kids Return

Kitano had come close to dying before making this. A motorcycle crash in 1995 left the right side of his face paralysed and prone to violent spasms. After extensive surgery and physiotherapy, there was open speculation that he would never work again. Kids Return is his first film after the accident, and he does not appear in it; he only wrote and directed. Two high-school friends drop out. Masaru tries to rise inside a yakuza organisation, Shinji takes up boxing. For a while each looks like he has found a direction, and then each runs into a wall. The film presents failure not as an accident but as an inevitable curve. Joe Hisaishi's score is the film's second voice, bending the same theme to carry both the elation and the stumble. It screened at Cannes and became Kitano's most successful film in Japan. Who it is for: viewers who want a youth film without nostalgia or consolation. Who it is not for: anyone expecting Kitano's hard action. There is violence, but this is not a crime film; it is a story about running out.