The movie opens up in a maximum
security penitentiary in Japan,
where only the most notorious criminals are kept.
Two guards are inspecting the cells one by one,
and after a while, they come across the ‘isolation
cell’, which apparently houses the most dangerous
criminal in Japan; Suzuki. He is a middle aged
man, who has been held captive for many years.
After the guards leave, Suzuki smiles
and takes out one of his teeth.
A while later, the guards return to
inspect the perimeter, but by this time,
Suzuki is already out. One of the guards senses
someone’s presence and shows his torch around
the place. However, Suzuki, showcasing his
parkour skills, evades the light without
making any noise. He then clings onto the
wall until the guards resume their checking.
Just then, the guards reach the isolation
cell and realize that Suzuki has escaped.
They immediately call for backup, and in no
time, the place is surrounded by army generals.
Meanwhile, we see Suzuki running through
the penitentiary’s roof while an alarm
blares in the background. As he reaches a deadend,
it suddenly starts raining, and
the movie goes into a flashback.
12 years ago, a new batch of prisoners is
brought to a medium security penitentiary.
Among those prisoners is Suzuki,
who is serving a ten year sentence.
He is a shy individual who never utters a
word, and has a strange upside-down Mount
Fuji tattoo on his chest. We also get to know
that Suzuki is notorious for escaping prisons,
as he has already achieved the feat thrice.
The guards are well aware about this fact,
but they are certain that Suzuki
won’t be escaping this time around.
In the next scene, Suzuki is escorted
to his cell, which is a small room
with a ventilator at the top. He stares at the
ventilator as if he has something in his mind.
Outside, a guard talks to the prison warden; Mr.
Kanemura, and assures him that they will take care
of Suzuki. However, when he peeks through the
door, he finds that Suzuki has already escaped.
In no time, the penitentiary organizes a large
manhunt to track down the runaway criminal.
They make an elaborate plan to circle the entire
town, believing that the criminal is a genius.
But surprisingly, they find him within 20
minutes, without even breaking a sweat.
For some reason, Suzuki was running
straight through the train tracks.
Later, he is brought back to the same cell,
but this time, his hands are cuffed. Meanwhile,
when a guard peeks through his door, he finds
that Suzuki has covered his head with a blanket.
Enraged, the guard shouts at
Suzuki to sleep with his head out,
but the latter doesn’t listen. As
a result, he is badly beaten up.
The next morning, we see the warden going
through records of Suzuki’s previous
incarcerations. After a bit of research,
he finds a strange coincidence. Every time
Suzuki escaped from a prison, he was caught at
the nearby train tracks, almost immediately.
At night, the warden, along with a guard are
on a routine check-up of the place. When they
enter Suzuki’s cell, they are taken aback
to find that he has unlocked his handcuffs.
The hot-tempered guard demands to know
how Suzuki pulled off such a trick,
but as usual, he remains silent. Because
of this, he is once again punished.
One day, Suzuki is seen playing with a small
wire. He has somehow smuggled it inside his cell,
and it is the same tool that is
helping him unlock his handcuffs.
To those who are thinking where he
hides it, well, you know the answer.
In the next scene, the warden leaves the prison
to spend time with his family for a week.
In his absence, the guards become complacent,
and this gives Suzuki the perfect window to
execute his plan. He takes out the roll of
wire, and tries unlocking the door with it.
After a while, a guard finally arrives to inspect
the place. When he peeks through the door,
he notices that Suzuki has again slept
with his head covered. However, this time,
he simply ignores it. Just then, we are shown
that Suzuki is watching the guard from the
ceiling. He has already escaped the cell,
and now, he is waiting for the right time to
flee the building. When the guard leaves, he
climbs further up, until he reaches the top.
He then punches a soft spot in the roof,
makes a hole, and gets out of the place.
When the guards catch wind of this, they
immediately raise the alarm. The warden
also finds out about the escape, and
decides to return back to the prison.
The next morning, as the officials are
planning the manhunt, the warden arrives.
He suggests to the group that they cancel off
all plans, and instead send a single team to the
nearby railway tracks. The officials are stunned,
as they believe that Suzuki is not stupid enough
to hide in the same location, but when the
warden tells them that he is sure, they agree.
Surprisingly, his prediction comes true, and
the wantaway criminal is again captured near the
tracks. It seems as if all his intelligence
wanes off as soon as he exits the prison.
The following day, the warden is
rewarded for his quick thinking
and is promoted to a high-ranking
position at the ministry of justice.
Now, he has to leave his duties at the prison.
His new task is to visit various penitentiaries
around the country, and inspect the
living conditions of the prisoners.
On the other hand, Suzuki again breaks from his
cell, and gets apprehended near the train tracks.
With each year passing by, he gets transferred
to several penitentiaries, but none of them
can hold him inside. Because of this, the media
dubs him as the ‘breakout king’, and he becomes
a cultural icon. At one point, he becomes so
popular that even the kids start idolizing him.
Following this, the movie fast forwards by
12 years, where Suzuki is being transferred
to the central penitentiary. This
time, he is under strict surveillance,
as a bunch of guards have been assigned just to
look after him. Even his cell is a nightmare;
it is entirely made of concrete and has
several locks on the door. Here, we get
to know that the cell is the same ‘isolation
cell’ that we saw at the start of the movie.
As soon as the guards leave,
Suzuki scans the entire cell, and tries
to find anything that can help him escape.
One day, a guard arrives with food, and places
it inside Suzuki’s cell. As he prepares to leave,
Suzuki suddenly handcuffs him, and tries
to hurt him. As a result, the guard blows
his whistle and calls for backup. In no time,
several men arrive and beat Suzuki to a pulp.
After he regains consciousness, he peeks through
the small opening in the door, and tracks the
guards’ movements. As he is doing so, blood
drips from his face, and soaks the iron bars.
The next morning, the guards add a few extra
screws in Suzuki’s handcuffs, hoping that he
cannot open it this time. Before leaving, they
dish out another brutal punishment on him.
In this way, Suzuki starts passing his
days. He deliberately attacks the guards,
gets beaten up, and soaks the iron
bars of his door with his blood.
One day, the guards beat him up so
badly that one of his teeth falls off.
Surprisingly, Suzuki picks it up and starts
smiling, as if he had planned it all along.
In the next scene, Suzuki is seen drawing
something on the wall with his tooth. When a
guard arrives, he immediately places the tooth
in its original position, inside his mouth.
A few weeks later, Suzuki attacks
yet another guard. This time,
he crosses all boundaries and is
given the ultimate punishment.
They bring out a long chain, tie him up with
it, and make him stand in a difficult posture.
Days pass by, but he is still in the same
condition. One day, in a shocking turn of
events, Suzuki starts singing! It is
finally revealed that he can speak.
The movie then fast forwards by a year, and poor
Suzuki is still going through the punishment.
He has started looking like a castaway, and
maggots are seen running through his hands,
where he has been cuffed. Fortunately,
that evening, the guards enter his cell
and eventually take the chains off. As a result,
he finally gets to rest after an entire year!
Meanwhile, ex-warden, Mr. Kanemura, arrives at
the penitentiary to inspect the facilities there.
When he approaches the isolation cell,
he notices a sick and fragile Suzuki.
However, he simply ignores him and walks away.
Next, we are taken to the same night that we
saw at the start of the movie. When it starts
thundering outside, Suzuki sets his plan
into motion. It appears as if he has been
waiting for this day for over a year. He
takes out his tooth and starts opening the
screws of his cuffs. Here, we get to know
that Suzuki was not drawing on the walls,
but in fact, he was just sharpening his
tooth, so that it could fit the screws.
After setting himself free from the cuffs, he
approaches the door and starts shaking its metal
bars. Surprisingly, due to the constant dripping
of blood, the metal bars have become rusty,
and they easily come off. With this, he escapes
his cell, and eventually the entire place.
In the following scene, we are taken to
the past, on the day Suzuki was born.
His mother dies due to delivery
complications, while his father
is rotting inside jail. Due to this, he
is raised by his extended family members.
One day, as Suzuki is practicing
his parkour skills in the woods,
he is suddenly approached by his runaway father.
The two bond for a while, and Suzuki notices the
same tattoo on his father’s chest. Unfortunately,
their meeting is cut short when some officers
arrive and begin chasing the dad. Seeing
this, Suzuki vows to meet his father someday.
Back to the present, Suzuki is
again running through the tracks,
when he is stopped by Mr. Kanemura. The
ex-warden asks him to stop, and surprisingly,
he obliges. After a while, a group of guards
arrive at the scene, and take him away.
Seeing that even the most
fortified of penitentiaries
could not hold Suzuki in, the head of the
criminal department orders Mr. Kanemura
to escort Suzuki to the deadliest
prison on earth; the Prison Isle.
The Prison Isle is like no other penitentiaries.
It is located in the middle of the ocean, with
extremely dangerous currents on all sides.
Furthermore, the nearby
waters also contain sharks,
hence making escape impossible. The insides
of the penitentiary are equally terrifying.
Hundreds of guards are sanctioned around the
place, and if a prisoner tries to escape, they
are shot on sight. The prisoners are also given
poisoned food, which slowly makes them go insane.
When Suzuki arrives at the place, he
is immediately locked inside his cell.
The cell is just a bunch of rods put together,
which constricts Suzuki around his whole body.
As a result, he is not allowed to
move an inch, let alone escape.
Elsewhere, Mr. Kanemura enters the prison library,
and starts searching for information about Suzuki.
After a bit of searching, he eventually
gets some old files, and goes through them.
Back inside the prison, Suzuki
is meditating inside his cell.
Although escaping from the place seems impossible,
he seems to have an idea in mind. After a
while, he ends his meditation and opens his
eyes. He then dislocates both of his shoulders
and slowly gets out of the tiny confinement.
A prisoner notices him in the act, but since
he is too intoxicated, he doesn’t say a word.
Meanwhile, as Mr. Kanemura is still engrossed
in his research, the alarm in the island goes
off. However, instead of being worried, the prison
warden becomes happy, as there is virtually no way
to escape the island. He is also delighted that
his guards finally have got an opportunity to kill
a prisoner. Mr. Kanemura tries to tell him that
Suzuki is a genius, but the warden ignores him,
and tells that they will begin the
search operation the next morning.
In the morning, several guards are
dispatched all across the island,
and each one of them is carrying a rifle. As
the warden is briefing the rest of his men,
Mr. Kanemura suddenly arrives and informs them
that Suzuki is in fact looking for his dad, who
is also incarcerated on the island. This surprises
everyone, and here, the truth is finally revealed.
It turns out that everything was Suzuki’s plan all
along. He deliberately got himself into prison,
and escaped each time, so that he could finally
reach Prison Isle. His main mission is
to find his dad, and escape with him.
Elsewhere, Suzuki finally meets his dad, and
the duo has an emotional reunion. Unfortunately,
Mr. Kanemura, the warden, and a horde of other
men are also arriving at the same location.
Surprisingly, when they reach there,
Suzuki and the old man are already gone.
In the final scene of the movie, Suzuki takes
his dad to the edge of the island, where he
has a paraglider ready. The two then board the
glider, and fly away from the place. Meanwhile,
Mr. Kanemura tries interrogating an old man,
who lived in the same room as Suzuki’s dad.
Just then, he notices the same tattoo on the man’s
chest, and gets taken aback. The movie ends as Mr.
Kanemura narrates that after all these years of
planning, Suzuki has escaped with the wrong man.
