Kids Return

A well acted sombre Japanese drama, full of sympathy and warmth. That is how Takeshi Kitano's latest film Kids Return can be described. At the centre of the plot we find two twenty-year-olds, Shinji and Masaru, whose paths cross again after several years. Both are in the process of taking their first unsteady steps out into the adult world, which is not always so easy. Not with their background. The two friends decide to visit their old school, where their dreams and visions were born. We are transported back a few years and follow the inseparable duo's fortunes and adventures: they harass teachers, rob their fellow students on the underground, smoke, drink beer and try to sneak into the porn cinemas. Their conduct results in their being expelled from school. This and after having been assaulted themselves -leads them to start boxing. Shinji, who has talent, appears to have a promising future, while Masaru finishes and gets involved in the local yakuza. Both hope for success, but fate has other plans for them. They now find themselves back at the place where it all began - and nothing has changed. Was this their one and only chance? ''Is it over now?'', Shinji asks. ''On the contrary, this is only the beginning'', Masaru retorts, and we are left with a glint of hope for a brighter future. Kids Return is the sixth feature film Japanese super star Takeshi ''Beat'' Kitano has directed. As with his earlier works, it exhibits an extremely beautiful and aesthetic visual language. The tempo is calm, as usual, and the narrative full of ''offbeat'' humour, which has become somewhat characteristic for Kitano. The main difference is that Kids Return is characterized by a degree of maturity: in the themes of the drama (to a certain degree autobiographical), in the individual's inner growth and in the structure of the whole story. Kids Return is an excellent film by a great master. The final question, asked by one of the main characters, is reminiscent of a quotation by Sonia Braga: ''Every end is a beginning - or every beginning is an end.'' Broadly speaking, this is what the whole film is really about. MFGT