MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Guys Who Never Learn II’ Is Catching On

“Guys Who Never Learn II” (Little Tokyo Cinema 1) is much better than its predecessor, a prison comedy that was a box-office smash in Japan.

To be sure, it’s no art film, but this time writer-director Norifumi Suzuki and co-writer Masahiro Kakefuda blend broad humor with honest emotion. There’s a real edge to the cons’ shenanigans through a wry perception of how the prisoners try to make themselves look better in each others’ eyes and how the guards can’t seem to resist succumbing to petty cruelties to the inmates. The film leaves us with the sense of how much ingenuity and effort is required on the part of the cons to achieve even the smallest victory for the human spirit.

Virtually all the key characters from the first film are back--the 70-year-old lifer, the apoplectic chief guard and a host of others with their individual quirks. The key newcomer in their midst is Mizuta (Masao Kusakari), a tall, lean bookmaker, a natural leader and a welcome addition to the prisoners’ baseball team. Through flashbacks and daydreams we become acquainted with the beautiful bar hostess (Rumiko Koyanagi), whom Mizuta hopes is waiting for him on the outside. We discover much about the other inmates through the same devices.

There’s a warm, sustaining camaraderie among the men that is extended to Mizuta, who eventually finds he is able to accept that a man he recognizes as a childhood classmate has grown up to be a transvestite entertainer (Masaki Kyomoto). (Kyomoto’s cocktail-lounge rendition of “Memories,” via a flashback, is so sincere it forestalls laughter).

As in the first film, Joji Abe, upon whose real-life experiences both movies are based, turns up in a small part (he’s the burly guy who returns to prison near the film’s end). The view we get of Japanese prison life is that while not medieval or barbaric, it’s not all that enlightened either. As in America, punishment more than rehabilitation still seems the order of the day. (Times-rated mature for adult situations.)

“Shadow Hunter 2” and “Baby Cart 6” open today at the Little Tokyo Cinema 2 as part of an ongoing samurai series.