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SUMMARY

Miyamoto is a hitman for hire.  On his current job to kill Chinese Triad boss Mizoguchi, a mysterious girl appears out of nowhere.  Her arrival startles the hitman, and he promptly shoots her.  While he is distracted, Mizoguchi takes the opportunity to escape.

Feeling bad about what he has done, Miyamoto takes the young woman to his home.  When she recovers, he tries to find out who she is.  The girl tells him that her name is Milly and she is a soldier from the year 2084.  Her mission is to kill the leader of an alien invasion, and thus save humanity from extinction.  When he tries to get rid of her, Milly sticks a bomb to his neck, threatening to detonate it if he doesn't help her.

As it turns out, the alien has already arrived, having crash landed in the forest near Tokyo. Wanting to use the alien technology for their own nefarious purposes, Mizoguchi has been ordered by the tong to capture him.

Now the race is on not only for Milly and Miyamoto to stop Mizoguchi, but to get to the alien first before his friends arrive.

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: The DVD quality is excellent. It's colors are sharp, and the motion is fluid.  No pixels, wrinkles or edge enhancement noted.

AUDIO: All three 5.1 audio tracks (Japanese, English, and French) really knocks your socks off.  The sound during the action segments hits you from all sides.

EDITS: The audio commentary from the Japanese DVD release is not included on this DVD.  No edits to the film have been made

EXTRAS: A lot more than on the regular Japanese DVD release.  We have three featuretts.  The first covers the stunts, the second involves the art direction.  For the third, we have a before and after of key scenes that used Computer Generated effects.  There is also a production diary, with optional commentary track.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: The story is not very original.  Half "Terminator" half "Independence Day", you will spend hours picking what scenes were "borrowed" from what movie. Director and writer Takashi Yamazaki along with Kenya Hirata at least know how to keep things entertaining. 

ACTING: The cast is excellent.  Asian superstar Takeshi Kaneshiro once again makes a rather unsavory character a really nice guy.  He is also able to switch from hard edged killer to a regular guy overwhelmed by the events around him in a snap.

Anne Suzuki is great as Milly.  She plays her character as soldier so sure of her duty, she must succeed by any means necessary.  When the truth about the invasion is revealed, her break down had me convinced.

Goro Kishitani gives Mizoguchi a pretty weird aura.  His icy stare and ultra repressed rage is really creepy.  He makes me believe that Mizoguchi is a total sociopath.

The English dub isn't bad, but it isn't great either.  The actors do a decent enough job, but the voices really didn't fit the character.  Besides, I normally don't like watching Asian cinema with an English dub.

As I am not a native French speaker, I could not tell you if they are good actors or bad actors.

FAN SERVICE: There are plenty of obvious "homage" to great Sci-Fi films like "Terminator", "The Matrix", and even "Transformers".  None in the nudity/panty shot category.

CONCLUSION

In recent years, Japanese cinema has had a rough time.  While movies for the home video market are churned out in infinite numbers, theatrical releases are few and far between.  With fierce competition from higher quality American films, many Japanese movies don't last very long.  Unfortunately, they all can't be "Bayside Shakedown 2".

The good news is, Returner is a top of the line Japanese movie.  With it's great cast, cool special effects, and stylized action, Returner will fit right in with your Hong Kong or Action cinema collection.

I was quite impressed with all aspects of this movie.  First, the fight sequences were awesome.  All that time Takeshi Kaneshiro spent in Hong Kong doing action films has really helped.  His moves are fluid, and he is very comfortable with the heavy gunplay required for his character.  Those of you who have only seen the rather stilted action of movies like "Black Angel" or "Zero Woman" will be surprised.

With comedy or dramas, timing is everything.  A veteran of Japanese dramas/comedies, Ann Suzuki has perfect timing; funny when she needs to be, serious when the situation calls for it, and emotional during the dramatic moments.  I am looking forward to seeing what she will do next.

No plastic spaceships in this movie.  There is some top of the line Computer Generated Imaging going on here.  I love the designs of the aliens.  After seeing the transforming Harrier, I can believe in the idea of a live action "Transformers" movie.

The action kicks major butt.  While not as intense as "Versus" it's got a lot of style.  Action "Supervisor" Takenari Tsuneyoshi has assembled a great core of stuntmen and women.  Thanks to Director Takashi Yamazaki's stylized gunplay, everyone looks cool and the gunplay is sexy.

What hobbles this movie is the writing.  Frankly, it's nothing great.  A collection of science fiction clichés, it doesn't require a lot of brain cells to understand this movie.  In the hands of a lesser director, this could have been nothing more than one of many low budget actioners. Perhaps knowing that the writing wasn't strong, Takashi Yamazaki covers up the deficiencies with non stop action and great looking visuals.

Columbia-Tri Star has made a very wise move in choosing this movie to release in the states.  While there are other movies that are better (Bayside Shakedown 1 and 2), this one is perfect for the "Matrix"/ "Terminator" crowd who are not quite finished with their stylized violence fix.  It's appeal will reach not only anime and Japanese movie fans, but lovers of Hong Kong action films.  There are many "John Woo" moments to be found, which should help broaden it's appeal.

Returner is an awesome film from the land of the rising sun.  It's high action quotient, great actors, and frantic pacing will keep you entertained every time you watch it.  Here is hoping that Columbia/Tri-Star will bring more movies like this one to our shores.

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