Doing Time (a surprisingly sunny prison movie)

Films/DVD Asylum

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Based on the autobiographical manga by Hanawa Kazuichi, "Doing Time" is a real charmer as inmates incarcerated in a high security prison in northern Japan find their delights and obsessions in the smallest and most trivial of details, often food-related. The atmosphere at times seems almost like a odd summer camp, albeit one with incredibly stringent and somewhat bizzare rules, which sometimes hint at a potential bit of slapstick humor, without degenerating into actual slapstick.
One episode from the manga which unfortunately did not find it's way into the movie is when the protagonist freaks out because he thinks all of the enforced leisure combined with generous helpings of (surprisingly good) food are making him fat, and he pictures rolls of blubber around the back of his neck, his ankles looking puffy, and he not only does he feel like a pig, he starts to look like one too!
Plot-wise, there isn't one: No real conflict, climax or resolution. That's just an observation, not a criticism.
Fans of Juzo Itami's films including Tampopo and A Taxing Woman will recognize Yamazaki Tsutomu in the leading role, but I was well into my initial viewing of the movie before I realized it myself, so well does he "become" one of the inmates.
I liked it well enough to get the DVD, and I don't buy many movies.

http://parlorpictures.com/releases.html#doingtime (Open in New Window)

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Kimber Kable

Topic - Doing Time (a surprisingly sunny prison movie) - 4season 16:43:33 01/07/07 (0)

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