UK DVD

I have the region 2 DVD from the UK and it has one of the weirdest menus I have ever seen. The movie is in Japanese with English subtitles. The subtitles are not regular ones, they are part of the image. So of course there is no setup option but there is also no scene selection and no bonus features. Because of that the menu only contains a "play" button.
Why is the menu even there? Why doesn't the movie just start automatically?