Columbia Pictures removed 15 minutes from the original film and released a shorter English-language version, written by Mark Saltzman[3] and narrated by Dudley Moore, on August 25, 1989.

One of the kittens is named Milo, or Chatran in the Japanese version (チャトラン (Chatoran), literally Brown Tiger), and has a habit of being too curious and getting himself into trouble.

When Milo is hiding inside a box floating in the river, it breaks loose from the dock, and he accidentally drifts downstream.

Milo encounters a bear, escapes from a raven and Deadwood Swamp, steals a dead muskrat from a fox, follows a railroad called Nippon Bearway to the home of a deer who shelters him, sleeps in a nest with an owl, stays for a while with a pig and her piglets, catches a fish and is robbed of it by a raccoon, is mobbed by seagulls, and evades another bear, then a snake, before falling into a deep pit.

Later, Milo, Otis, Joyce, and Sondra (along with their litters) happily find their way back together through the forest to their farm as the credits roll.

During the promotion of the film in Japan, the song "Neko Jita Gokoro mo Koi no Uchi" (猫舌ごころも恋のうち, "My Heart Has a Dislike for Love", lit.

I with a cat tongue heart toward romance), originally recorded by Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi for the Fuji TV anime series High School Kimengumi, was used in commercials for the film.

The song "Walk Outside", written by Dick Tarrier, is performed by Dan Crow in the opening shots and end credits.

The organization also reported, "We have tried through humane people in Japan, and through another Japanese producer to determine if these rumors are true, but everything has led to a dead end."