Radio-Zeit

Are one of those people who believes that Japan can only make movies about the Yakuza, or such topics? Then look no further than "Rajio no jikan" (called "Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald" in English)! A radio station in Tokyo is broadcasting a love story. It goes smoothly at first, but then they keep rewriting it. From there, their broadcast gets progressively crazier and crazier.

Boy! How they came up with that stuff is beyond me, but they did it. The English title comes from...well, I don't want to spoil that scene. The point is that you gotta see this movie if you can find it anywhere. It hearkens back to movies like "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" and "The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming", with the way that something seemingly small branches out into total lunacy. Absolutely hilarious.

If it were possible I'd give this film a higher score.

When I visited Japan in 1997 I saw a TV program that previewed this movie. I had always remembered what the film was about, but I had long forgotten the title of the film and I had never seen it in the United States as the big city I live in isn't big enough for films like this.

Fast forward to late 2009 when my wife and I decided to go to our local library to borrow films to watch. We were looking for Japanese films that we hadn't seen, and this was one of them. I couldn't believe I had finally found the film I was searching for.

This is a great film and is laugh out loud from start to finish. I had to look at some scenes a second and third time to catch the action I had missed from laughing. Of course, for the week I had it I watched it several more times!

The fact that this is a screwball comedy means that action takes place in the background as well as directly in front of the camera. Therefore, it is necessary to look fast and catch all the action, or rewind and watch it again and again and again.

If you like to laugh this film fills the bill very nicely. Not many people can pull off the high quality of this type of film. This film is my new all time favorite movie.

I wish I hadn't had to wait so long to find it. In my opinion, on a scale of 1 to 100 I proudly give this film 1,000,000! (I'm not paid to say this.)

Happy viewing, and don't eat or drink anything while watching this film...you'll choke.

A brilliant comedy from Japan about a radio station going live with an original drama written by Miyako, a housewife, who entered a contest the station gave. She is played superbly by the plainly dressed but pretty Kyoko Suzuki. From the beginning, the madness starts. Her screenplay keeps getting tweaked to the point where it is unrecognizable and the last second script changes keep the tension up. Throughout, the characters are so rich: The temperamental actress Nokko (Keiko Toda), the too appeasing producer, the opinionated engineer, the suffering manager of Nokko, Miyako's husband who thinks the screenplay is about him, and so on. Its screwball comedy at its best, frantic, unrelenting and, at times, hilarious. I would not usually give a 10 to a movie such as this, but this one not only keeps your interest, it gets better and better. Even Ken Wattanabe is here, playing a trucker who, while driving his big rig, tunes into the melodrama and is moved by it all. Writer/Director Koki Mitani does a superb job of keeping the pacing perfect in this film. You have to see it, it is really terrific.

"Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald" in English. This account of a live radio drama gone awry has universal appeal, while also poking fun at contemporary Japanese culture. There are some wonderfully frantic comic scenes in it. Everything that can go wrong with a young writer's first drama script happens, which is how a love story about a Japanese girl saved by a fisherman turns into the tale of a Chicago trial lawyer rescued by an astronaut who's subsequently lost in space, etc. I give it eight ho's out of ten.

Despite cliche slapstick scenes (which are little and tolerable), "Radio No Jikan" is a refreshing comedy for someone who is tired of mainstream cinema blockbusters. It had my sister and I in tears during the second half of the movie when things really turn chaotic. Unforgettable characters were the tiresome Bucky and the charismatic Mr. Horinouchi. I give it an 8 out of 10 !