Rajio no jikan (1997)

Director:

Kôki Mitani

Writer:

Kôki Mitani (screenplay)

Release Date:

8 November 1997 (Japan)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

A radio play is going to go on air at a Tokyo radio station. It is a weepy melodrama written by housewife Miyako...

Plot Keywords:

Radio Station | Radio Play | Radio Actor | Screwball | Radio Announcer

Awards:

17 wins & 9 nominations

Cast

Toshiaki Karasawa	...	Manabu Kudo, the director
Kyoka Suzuki	...	Miyako Suzuki, the writer
Masahiko Nishimura	...	Tatsuhiko Ushijima
Keiko Toda	...	Nokko Senbon
Jun Inoue	...	Hiromitsu Hirose
Toshiyuki Hosokawa	...	Hamamura Jo
Kaoru Okunuki	...	Sumiko Nagai
Zen Kajiwara	...	Harugoro Otaguro
Moro Morooka	...	Bucky, the writer
Yoshimasa Kondô	...	Shiro Suzuki, Miyako's Husband
Akira Fuse	...	Shuji Horinouchi
Shunji Fujimura	...	Mansaku Iori
Shirô Namiki	...	Suhuru Hosaka
Hiromasa Taguchi	...	Makoto Tatsumi, sound mixer
Yasukiyo Umeno	...	Furukawa

Also Known As:

Radio no jikan
Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

South Korea:All | Hong Kong:I | Singapore:PG

Company:

Fuji Television Network

Trivia:

Toshiyuki Hosokawa introduces his character as Donald McDonald after seeing a McDonald's fast food bag. The reason for this is because Ronald McDonald is known as "Donald McDonald" in Japan.

Movie Connections:

References Tampopo (1985)

Radio Chaos

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.