The Japanese cracked exe works fine, you just have to install patch 1.3 as well. I've noticed that game performance suffered without the 1.3 patch using the cracked exe.
Note that in order to get the Japanese exe to work, you HAVE to set its compatibility to Windows 2000 if you have Windows XP or 2003, otherwise it just crashes. To set windows 2000 compatibility mode, right click on the exe and go to properties-> compatibility tab, check "Run the program in compatibility mode for:" and select "Windows 2000" in the pull-down menu
The VW cracked exe works as well (haven't tried it much) and doesn't need windows 2000 compatibility mode
The subtitles appear because of the 1.3 patch. To remove them, just rename or delete the SUBTITLES folder and they'll be gone
Edit: here's a mirror for the VW cracked exe until it's uploaded on gcw:
*REMOVED - FAKE RELEASE*