The film, without sound and in black and white, lasts 35 minutes and is currently in free access on YouTube. It was done back then by the Japanese police for security issues.
In the images you can see the four musicians descending from the plane smilingdressed in kimonos, and then perform in front of a riotous crowd in the hall of the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo.
These files, however, have a curious detail: apart from the faces of the Beatles, the faces of the other people filmed are blurredfor reasons of respect for private life.
For years, the issue of image rights for these recorded people was a sticking point between Japanese Beatles fans and right-to-know advocates and local police.
Fans turned to the Supreme Court of Japan to try to authorize an uncensored version, claiming that it was a “historical document” and considering it absurd to want to blur the faces recorded more than 50 years ago, almost impossible to identify today, according to they.
But the court rejected these arguments in 2018 and the police’s proposal to make the document public with the faces blurred was finally prevailed.