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Returner
In the
year 2084 aliens invade Earth and conquer humankind except
for a remaining group in the mountains of Tibet. Their mission
is to go back to the past, and prevent the events that lead
to this human annihilation.
While
preparing to send the volunteers into the past, the aliens
break into this stronghold and Miri (Millie in English) is
left as the last hope, and now must go back to 2002 to prevent
this
catastrophe.
We now
are introduced to Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who is an
orphaned gun for hire, and has found his way after a shootout
facing Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani) who is a crime boss. The
two have a history which Mizoguchi is not really aware of,
but nothing gets fully explained anyway,because Miyamoto is
distracted by the arrival of Miri while Mizoguchi
gets away.
The crime
boss finds out about a strange craft that has been locked
up and tested on, but we all know it has fallen from space.
So Mizoguchi thinks he can harness the powers of this alien
to use it for his personal benefit. Are you still with me?
Equipped
with a watch that slows down time for everyone but the wearer
and gives them super speed, Miri tries to convince Miyamoto
that she is from the future and the end is near, of course
he does not believe her,so she turns to strapping a mini bomb
a-la-Running Man on his neck for him to help her kill this
alien that has crash landed, and caused Earth to be wiped
out.
An interesting
aspect to this film is how the alien ships all have that funky
anime style look that transform into Earth planes, in a way
very alive and Transformer-ish, while the aliens are pretty
nasty looking fellas in armor. Without it, they put the Arquillian
Prince to shame.
Between
misunderstanding deceptions, revenge, and desperate comedy,
romance must take place and is handled nicely. Towards the
end the story starts to ride on thin ice, trying desperately
to wrap things up, and explain little things that didn’t
have too much significance to the core of the story. For most
of the running time you really have to be reminded that the
alien threat is what this is all about, because you feel it's
more of a revenge plot that has the whole Judgment Day theme
lurking in subplot mode.
To director
Takashi Yamazaki's credit, though, he spares nothing in making
this action packed when need be much like John Woo, and Hong
Kong action films traditionally have the certain je ne
c'est qua.
The dead
giveaway to the influence of Hong Kong has to be the infusion
of cool long black leather jackets flapping in the wind, awkward
romance, and bad guy overacting.
After all, Takeshi is known in Asia as one of cinema's heart
throbs, and not so much an action star, but Returner
does for him what The Matrix has done for Keanu Reeves,
making him look awesome with a gun and kick butt kung fu.
Hopefully, he could do more of these roles to keep the younger
generation interested in him.
Modern
Japanese films don't seem to move anyone much like the classics
anymore, but now and again something does pop up and impresses
the Asian market. Not so much in the West, though.
Nothing
is really original in this flick, slapping other more famous
Western movies together. It screams Clockstoppers effects
(I will still deny I saw that), a Terminator story
line, Matrix action, Back to the Future logic,
and many, many more. Returner does have its moments,
and does make a decent fun film.
If you
liked Underworld, give
this a shot.
Rating:
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