Anssi Vartiainen It's the end of the 21st century and humanity is losing a war against invading alien force. A time machine is their only remaining hope, but things take a turn for the worse when the original traveller dies and a young girl is sent instead.As you can see, the film doesn't exactly shine with originality. It's your basic time-travelling fish out of the water storyline, this time with a Japanese setting. But even there it fails because it more closely resembles an urban gangster movie, and not a very good one at that. Sure there's the aliens, but they're not in the movie very much and are your run down the mill basic Roswell aliens.Not to say that the film is godawful. Some of the action scenes have a bit of flash to them and the two main characters are enjoyable, especially Milly (Anne Suzuki), who's delightfully capable and resourceful for an early turn of the century action heroine.Still, the fact remains that Returner has perilously little to show for itself. It's not original, it's not particularly well executed and you really don't get much out of it. There are worse movies out there, certainly, but it's not a movie worth looking for.

w_vermont The first impression I had when watching this movie was "oh great, another SF movie that takes the most known themes from the genre (alien invasion, time travel, etc) and mixes it together" ... but when the movie was over, I felt the mix was successful and there wasn't a boring moment in the movie.The fact that this movie stars three good actors: Kaneshiro Takeshi, Suzuki An and Kishitani Goro is another good point. I especially enjoyed Kishitani's part as the main villain. He's a great actor who can pull off playing a villain as well as a hero.Special effects aren't extraordinary but well done and they blend in well with the scenes.Overall an enjoyable movie that I wouldn't mind re-watching

puppethead23 No movie I think illustrates the example of Style over Substance moreso I think than than this movie. Its a common trait it seems among Asian cinema to throw in flash with no substance at all. Yes I know Hollywood does this too, but it seems to me that 9/10 Asian films that have great special FX have terrible writing and the same goes for so much Anime. (not knocking all Asian films Oldboy is one of my favs!)OK first off, I cannot at all knock the direction, cinematography, and FX in this movie. They are all superb. Now with that said. Everything else is pure DRECK! I mean its so bad you have to turn your brain off COMPLETELY. This movie has the cheesiest villain in it, I've ever seen.. Right up ther with the villain in Final Fantasy - Spirits Within."If I can't use this weapon, It's JUNK!" like a child who tosses away a toy because he can't figure it out. Why did he ever expect to figure it out.. ITS ALIEN! He gambled his whole organization on the hunch that he could just magically use an alien ship to take over the world. God what an idiot. And many times did I count in this movie when Hero - Villain come face to face and don't shoot each other? About 5/6 times?! Then there's this great ability that nobody seems to realize they have. The hero's can slow down time, seemingly anytime they want. But they use this ability maybe 3 times in the whole movie, and use it in the dumbest ways I could imagine. They didn't even try to write in a simple contrivance that explains the power might be limited in some way, or only had so much energy. No they just ignored all logic and just didn't use it. Like the characters just Forget they have this godly power. Then there's the Aliens which hardly serve any purpose in the whole movie accept to show us a few great transforming effects. And finally there's this ending with the girl disappearing. WHY? Oh.. she's going back into the future now. What a great time machine! It just knows that your job is complete so it starts slowing making you disappear and reappear in the future. How nice of it to do that! More like, your disappearing because perhaps you erased your future self and altered your future so that you were never born. But hey go ahead and believe that the future is looking out for you always and now its programmed to bring you back safely. This has got to be a show for young kids because Nobody over the age of 12 would not find this movie utterly ridiculous. God please teach film producers to look at hireing decent writers! They are Much More Important to a good movie, than Director, Actor, FX!

AwesomeWolf Version: Columbia Tristar's DVD release. Japanese / English subtitles.Time travel is cool. Explosions are cool, as are gun fights. Any movie that attempts to incorporate 'The Terminator', 'Independence Day', 'Leon', and nearly every John Woo movie made between 'A Better Tomorrow' and 'Face/Off' is cool. 'Returner' features all these elements, and therefore, is awesomely cool. Or at least a fun action movie.In 2084, the Earth has been nearly overrun by aliens. The last survivors of the human race are fighting a losing battle in the mountains of Tibet. Naturally, these survivors have mad scientists with them who develop all these cool gadgets, as well a time-machine. Milly (Anne Suzuki) volunteers to go back to 2002 to stop the war from beginning. Upon arrival, she teams up with Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Miyamoto is a mercenary seeking vengeance against the Triad gangster, Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani), who in turn, may actually have caused the war in the first place. Convenient.A Japanese friend of mine originally recommended 'Returner' to me, and another friend of ours, knowing full well we are easily impressed by explosions. If, like me, you are easily impressed by explosions and have not yet seen 'Returner', you should stop reading and go watch it right now.'Returner' is little more than a stylish action movie. Most of the plot seems to be taken from random elements of 'Terminator', ID4, and 'Leon', and styled in a similar way to ID4, 'Matrix', and a fair number of John Woo movies. I must admit that any comparison to the 'Matrix' is a tad unfair, as the 'Matrix' was also made up of elements from nearly every movie John Woo ever made. As a sci-fi / action movie, 'Returner' is entertaining, if a little cheesy. The action scenes are generally awesome and exciting.'Returner' is a fun action movie. It should at least satisfy hardcore action fans, and should be entertaining enough for anyone looking for a fun movie - 7/10