Melvyn Foo This comedy didn't really work for me. Let's generalize that: comedies don't really work for me.Those that (kindof) did include The Proposal, White Chicks, Pulp Fiction, Zombieland, The Devil Wears Prada and Three Idiots. I have no idea where are the lines that divide the comedies that work for me and those that don't. Although this film was tightly packed and well-paced, the humour was a tad too ridiculous and the satire a little too forced. (But then again, satires were never meant to be realistic.)Originally a stage play, Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald dramatises one night in a radio station. The radio station plans to stage a radio play based on a housewife's melodrama script that won (and was the only submission of) the radio station's contest. However, when the lead actress throws a tantrum and demands her character's name to be edited from 'Ritsuko' to 'Mary Jane', the floodgates open. More and more changes are made as the script succumbs to the demands of other actors, realities of the radio station and plot inconsistencies caused by initial changes. Amidst the chaos and the deadlines, a wholly new narrative emerges (though the happy ending is preserved).There are three satiric points that the film makes. First, the film criticises the Japanese work place convention and its rigid corporate hierarchy. Second, the film mocks the Japanese social practice of being polite at all costs. Third, the film ridicules Japanese' obsession with the West.More subtle is the subversion of the creative process. The author, conventionally seen as omnipotent in his own creative universe, is relegated to a mere gatekeeping role (and not even an effective one at that) by the corporate institution's demands. Her script is a meticulously crafted tear-jerker set in a Japanese fishing village. In the end, it becomes an action-fantasy set in Chicago where the hero is lost in space and the heroine is a high flying trial lawyer. Ironically, some of the film's most epic scenes arise precisely from the attempts to make the radio play more epic – a vacuum cleaner imitates the sound of a rocket launch; a flushing toilet is a dam breaking.But all is well that ends well. And our housewife asks and receives only one thing at the end – a happy ending. And everyone, including the radio play's audience represented by a single truck driver, is happy in the end.

Lee Eisenberg 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.

snaffulafugus 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 !

shourav I bought the last available ticket to see Welcome Back, Mr McDonald this evening, having been unsuccessful at obtaining one for Love Letter. Maybe because I chanced upon this film, not having any expectations, I enjoyed it tremendously. Sure the film has some stock comic characters and stock comic situations and the premise (message?) may strike a chord in every struggling artiste's heart, but the grit with which this film is made is heartwarming. A novice playwright's maiden radio play gets torn to shreds by the powers that be as she hangs on, flailingly, to the emotion that she hopes to convey. A film that reminds us that our heart yearns for the underdog while our mind rationalises the behaviour of the seemingly tyrannical, this film reminds us of what movies are meant to be: an adventure where at the end you can't help but exclaim.