[ Rajio no Jikan (ラジオの時間) ]
a.k.a. Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald

–Movie info–
Genre…: Comedy / Drama
Year…: 1997
Country…: Japan
Runtime…: 103 min
Director…: Koki Mitani (三谷幸喜)
IMDB…: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133170/
IMDB rating…: 7.8/10

–Release info–
Source…: R2J DVD9 (NTSC)
Resolution…: 720x480
Aspect ratio…: anamorphic widescreen (1.8125)
Video codec…: H.264 (High Profile, Level 3.1)
Video bitrate…: 1557 Kb/s
Audio…: Japanese 2.0 (Dolby Pro Logic II)
Audio codec…: AAC-LC (VBR)
Audio bitrate…: 198 Kb/s
Subtitles…: English (ASS and SRT softsubs)

–Comment–
I couldn’t find a working torrent of this forgotten gem anywhere except the DVD ISO itself, so I decided to re-encode it for wider distribution (at the original resolution with generous bitrate). I don’t know if it’ll play back on H.264-capable standalones (PS3, Xbox360, etc.) - please leave a comment if you try it.

If you can’t view this for some reason, I recommend the Combined Community Codec Pack ( http://www.cccp-project.net/ ).

–New York Times review–
Comedy is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind when we think of Japanese cinema. But a few more films like Koki Mitani’s hilarious screwball farce “Welcome Back, Mr. McDonald” could change all that.

This movie is ostensibly a goofy comedy about a live radio drama that goes haywire after the imperious diva playing the lead insists on certain last-minute changes. Her demands set in motion a desperate chain of events that transform a sudsy romantic drama set in a Japanese fishing village into a ludicrous action-adventure fantasy set in the United States.