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Well, If you follow the Asian cinema news, or read some of my posts here, you definately heard about this 2002 Japanese Science Fiction/ Action film. Before it hit theater screens in Japan, last August, I posted few links to the trailers and many people were interested in the film. And since the official R2 Special Edition DVD set was released last week, and I had the luck to order and view, I will present my review of the film. So does it worth all the hype its been getting in past year or so, or its just another big budgeted, overhyped dissapointment? Read on to find out :)
First the Plot:
Miyomoto searches for the man responsible for the death of his childhood friend. As a lone mercenary for hire, he finds Mizoguchi, an infamous yakuza notorious for his black market dealings in human organs. When Millie literally falls out of the sky from the future and disrupts Miyomoto just seconds away from fulfilling his vengeance, his world is sent into upheaval as he attempts to find his friend’s murderer once again and take in the fact that Millie is an envoy 80 years ahead of his time sent back to the past to prevent the initial beginnings of a war between Earth and an invading alien race known as the Daggra.
Now lets talk about the movie:
I have to say its NOT an Action film that trailers might have made you believe it is. It has many action scenes, but its not all wall to wall action extravaganza. Its more like to US made big budgeted Summer flick, but with more soul.
It looks and sound good. The director did excellent and very stylish job. Visuals blend scenery, actors and visual fx perfectly, and some scenes have this WHoA effect. Camera work is also good, and while this film does slows a bit in the mid section, its doesnt become boring.
While the plot borrowes elements from many movies(for example time travel elements from The Terminator), its has some nice twists, great character interaction and overall just fun to watch.
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Takeshi Kaneshiro(well known Japanese actor, working in Japan and HK, and appearing in PS2 game Onimusha as main character Samonosuke) as Myamoto is very charizmatic and cool. He does great job in action scenes, where he is like a hurricane of death, with his leather trench coat flying as he spins, shoots, kicks and involved in all other kinds of action mayhem.
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Ann Suzuki who plays role of Millie, is very cute too look at, but also charming, and quite spunky. The way she is discovers the world of the past, which is very different from the devastated Earth of the future gives her this innocent aura, since such simple things as bowl of cooked noodles with some tasty sauce, or some nice clothes can make her laugh and cry in overflow of feelings. But she is not the damsel in distress that Myamoto has to protect, and can fight on her own, alongside with him.
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Goro Kishitani plays Mizoguchi, and he is perfect BAD guy. Crazy, ruthless and deadly, he is the one, who would shoot a child just to make the rest of children to become silent, or would beat up his own men, when things dont go as they expected. One of the best characters in the film, and great counterpart to the Myamoto.
Well done action scenes are very important to this kind of film, and Returner doesnt dissapont. It starts with the Bang, as secret deal between two Yakuza groups set on board of big cargo ship, being interrupted buy Kaneshiro, who then procedes to methodically eliminate the bad guys in some very cool ways.It includes some nice gun play, and good to see good old blood effects to use. There is also a cool re-enactment of apparment assault scene from Leon/Proffessional, as Kaneshiro traped in the big research room inside Goverment Research Facility, and Yakuza Special Assault team trying to get in. Nicely staged and tense. Once again Kaneshiro shines in the action role. There are also some pretty cool action scenes, in which heroes use the special device that Millie has, that speeds up your movements(ala The One), so you can attack and dodge multiple enemy attacks, and those scenes are very nicely implemented.
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Special praise goes to sfx team, that was responsible for all of the special fx in the film. From a very impressive depiction of future world, alien ships(that can be disguised as human made aircraft and transform in true style of Transformers), alien battle armors(with almost indestructable force shields) to various explosions and fast/slow time effects. Excellent job, and on the level of many Hollywood big budeget films.
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The quality of Special Edition dvd set is excellent. It comes in very cool, dark red box, with two cases inside: one has pictures and other material related to the film, and other that actually host 2 dvds. The video and audio quality is top notch, and it also has a very good English subtitles(which is somewhat a rarety for Japanese dvd releases). The only con is that this set is not cheap. I personally paid $64(including shipping), so it might be quite pricey, so unless you a diehard fan of Asian cinema like me :) you better to wait for either cheaper regular edition R2 disk, or HK dvd that undoubtedly will be released in the future. Columbia picked up rights for US dvd(and maybe even theatrical release) so it might come to US as R1 release some times in the future.
At the end, I enjoyed the film alot and definately recomend it :)
P.S - Special thanks goes to KFC cinema site which hosts pictures I posted in my review, and that provides excellent Asian film coverage.
Click here to read Returner review posted on their site:
http://www.kfccinema.com/reviews/act.../returner.html
