Kids Return (1996)

Kids Return (1996)

Dir. Takeshi Kitano

Told mostly in flashback, it's the story of two high school friends, Shinji and Masaru (Masanobu Andô and Ken Kaneko, respectively), who occasionally go to school but spend very little time in actual class.

The tutors have given up on them, seeing them as either directionless morons or little more than petty thieves in training. In time, the duo would probably agree... but a single event gives perspective that leads to insight.

Often in Kitano films the secondary characters are just as interesting as the primaries, but in Kids Return some of the lesser characters actually stole the show, being arguably even more interesting than the two main ones and I'd love to have seen their sub-stories expanded and further explored.

Oddly, even though it's but a tiny portion of the film insofar as the total running time goes, I was affected more by the scenes set in the present than in flashback.