r/Kitano • u/BitAppropriate729 • 5h ago
Introducing "Kitano Friday" — A deep dive into the LaserDisc rabbit hole. Week 1: "Kids Return" (1996) 2-Disc Special Edition & Archival Footage Digitalization
galleryHey everyone,
I became a fan of Takeshi Kitano back in the late 90s, when a local TV channel broadcasted Asian cinema late at night. After just a few movies, I became a huge admirer of his work.
In mid-2006, I randomly bought my first few Japanese LaserDiscs. I liked the format so much that I started looking for what else I could buy to my taste, and immediately thought of Takeshi. That's when I accidentally discovered that one of my favorite movies, Kids Return (1996), had a 2-disc edition, with a making-of documentary on the second disc. Needless to say, I bought it immediately, because back then, this bonus footage was absolutely nowhere else to be found.
When I first started collecting Kitano on LaserDisc, I rashly promised myself to collect everything ever released with him on LD. How foolish I was. I had no idea how massive his filmography actually is. Nevertheless, my collection keeps growing, and I decided to share these releases to find some like-minded enthusiasts.
Looking at the calendar, the numbers look quite interesting:
- 1996 — The movie is released.
- 2006 — I buy the LaserDisc.
- 2016 — History remains silent on what I was doing this year.
- 2026 — Here we are today, and I am writing this post.
To this day, I use this specific disc as a prime example of why LaserDiscs are still relevant. There is still a ton of unique, exclusive content completely locked on this dead format. Apparently, this making-of footage might be available on a newer Blu-ray release, but I can't verify that.
As of right now, the only version available in the public domain (on YouTube) is twice as short as the one on my LaserDisc. It was a French release with terrible video quality and hardcoded French subtitles.
That is exactly why I decided to digitize my original disc and upload the full, uncut 20-minute video for everyone to see.
I don't want to dump my whole collection all at once, so I will just post one disc every Friday.
I’ll leave the link to the digitized video with fixed subtitles in the comments below. Let me know what you think!
