Another Takeshi Kitano's tonight...

... and it was "Kids Return" (aka "Kidzu Ritan"), a lovely coming-of-age tale. Great as everything Kitano does, and with Hisaishi's soundtrack - always excellent. The story is about two high-school bullies, Shinju and Masaru, and how they grow up, and things do not go exactly as they expected. It's a funny, and touchy movie at the same time. I could identify very much with the characters, in the sense that when I was young I had all these dreams (becoming this and that, doing one thing or another, and so on) and in the end, it did not come out exactly as I had planned.

Shinju and Masaru, and their shy colleague Hiroshi, try to do their best (as a boxer, a Yakuza's man and a taxi driver respectively) and things just do not seem to work as expected. They are still very young though and can easily make a new start. It's a fun film, light and well-acted, albeit slight melancholy. A must-see.