BULLET TRAIN & Toei

[Miles Wood]

I saw Junya Sato's THE BULLET TRAIN (Shinkansen daibakuha) this week.
Apparently about to be be released on a US DVD of dubious legality
(containing a shortened and dubbed version), I watched it via Toei's
fairly recent LD.

First off I have a couple questions about the film, that I couldn't
figure out due to my lack of knowledge of Japanese: What makes Ken
Takakura's character seperate from his family and why are the police
unable to ID him when surely they should know what he looks like?

Secondly, the presentation was annoyingly zoomboxed, cropping off
information on all four sides of the picture, which leads me to question
if Toei have not done a good job preserving some of their films.For
instance,  Toei are still releasing their "Pinky Violence" movies on VHS
as if they do not have source materials good enough to release them on
DVD. Does anyone know more about the situation?

Miles