Customer Reviews

Returner

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The Earth has been overrun by aliens. Only a small group remains hidden and free. They hope to go back in time to the cause of the war and prevent it. But the hideout is discovered and all is almost lost when a young, and untrained, woman jumps through the time gate to our present.

Although untrained as a soldier, she does know the basics of the mission. An alien ship will crash and the occupant needs to be killed before it can start the invasion. It seems simple enough except that future knowledge is not completely accurate. The ship has already crashed and the occupant has been taken away. Now with the help of a local criminal trying to go straight, she must fight harder than she knows to give humanity a future.

Good action, some nice plot twists, and a time paradox or two all combine to make an old plot seem fresh. I bought this one based on a trailer on another DVD and I was not disappointed. The film is fairly intelligent and the hero is wonderfully resourceful, desperate, and caring. Her character does not fall apart as she unravels what is going on and what she must do to stop it. Worth watching.

I purchased this movie expecting a cheesy film with bad acting like most recent Japanese live-action movies. I also expected a movie that borrowed heavily from other movies. But this really wasn't either one of those movies, at least not more than any other movie out of Hollywood.

Others have already reviewed this movie (girl goes back in time to save the human race), so I won't spend any more time on it.

The acting wasn't bad at all, especially Ann Suzuki's sometimes-serious, sometimes-rebellious character, Milly. The dubbing was also done well -- it was actually worth listening to. The CG and special effects were very good and imaginative, contributing to the plot. The soundtrack was a little inconsistent, and some of the camerawork was kind of strange, but nothing too distracting.

All in all, this movie stands on its own as a good sci-fi movie. It won't compare to older movies by Kurosawa, and it isn't as refined as many recent science fiction movies from the U.S. (although much better than Roland Emmerich's Godzilla), but it's still not bad by any stretch.

Yes, this movie has stolen ideas from other sci-fi films and yes, the characters are a bit formulaic but that doesn't take away from it's entertainment value. I really enjoyed watching this movie and was surprised to find that it was not as overly cheesy as I thought it would be. The characters are likeable, the plot is still interesting albeit copied from elsewhere, and action sequences are not too over-the-top. If you enjoy pure entertainment, then you'll enjoy this film. It helps that Takeshi Kaneshiro is in it too!

This was a great time travel sci-fi thriller. Great twists and the bad guy is awesome. I've always believed that it's the bad guy that carries any thriller. Sure the good guy should win but don't forget to have a bad guy that you love to hate.
The camera work and special effects are excellent. I would put this up against any thriller put out by Hollywood since the original Matrix.

I just finished watching this movie and let me tell you I am quite impressed. Especially after reading all the so called "movie critic" reviews of this movie. You know, I have had enough with the stupidity and hypocrisy of your average critic and I am not going to even bother anymore with reading what they have to say about a given movie. It has become obvious to me that a good majority of them are so concerned about what it is fashionable to say or what they think other critics think they should say that any chance of them giving a sincere and open minded look at a movie seems completely impossible. And you know what is the fashionable thing to say about this movie? That it is derivative, that it is only an amalgam of ripped-off ideas from other movies.
Take for example the Amazon.com editorial review above which says that "there's not a single original idea in Returner...combining elements of The Matrix, E.T., The Terminator and Independence Day, plus a dash of Back to the Future". This is basically a carbon copy of what nearly every wanna-feel-important movie critic on the net is writing about this movie (so who is being derivative here?). But I ask them, how is it any more derivative than the movies that they list as being ripped-off? Or any other movie for that matter. By the impossibly high standards with which they have obviously judged this movie ALL MOVIES would have to be considered derivative. 'Independence Day' becomes no more than a rehash of 'War of the Worlds' and 'Back to the Future' a rehash of 'The Time Machine' and so on and so forth. This is ridiculous. They are obviously being unfair to this movie. Yes it does contain elements from the movies mentioned, as well as elements from a thousand other movies, but so what? The same is true of every movie that has ever been made. But this movie is far from being a blatant rip-off, it presents many new ideas as well as some fresh perspectives on some old ones. Overall I found Returner to be a nicely balanced and enjoyable film. It has loads of style, amazing action sequences, an interesting plot, characters you care about and some very amazing special effects. I recommend that you don't listen to what the "critics" have to say (ever) and watch this movie with a fresh and unbiased mind. I am sure most of you will enjoy it.

Takeshi Kaneshiro, a Japanese and Hong Kong action star does a great job as a mysterious assassin of mobsters. This is a cool movie with great special effects, and good gun fighting sequences. It does borrow from the "Matrix" look with the black outfit and the black coat... but it doesn't take away from the movie's unique take on the genre. This movie is made in Japan, and mostly presented in the Japanese language (with some Mandarin and English), so hopefully the integrity of the soundtrack would be preserved when shown in the United States. This has a ship load of special effects. It has space ships, commercial airplanes transforming into giant robotic beings, air planes, and it has space aliens. This movie deals with time travel, war with invading race of space aliens, Japanese triads, government cover-ups, and guns. Overall the movie works for me in many levels, and I recommend action fans to check it out.

This is not a very deep movie, but if you want to see a fun sci-fi adventure, this would be a good choice. The movie's treatment of time travel (especially the little flashback at the end that explained some subtleties) was more rewarding than its treatment of the aliens. Questions about who the aliens were or why they came in the first place were not even addressed. There was considerable violence, including against kids, so this is not a family movie. But for adults, I would definitely recommend a rental, and if you're a real sci-fi fan, go ahead and buy with confidence. You won't regret it.

People say Returner copies ideas from other movies, but in this age of unoriginality (which movies is Hollywood remaking or making crappy sequels to this year?), the least that can be said is that it does a fine job of representing ideas from other movies.

The title is original, though, it's one of those Japanese-made-up English words: RI-TAA-NAA. I think it's derived from the idea that Milly (Suzuki An) "returns" to the past, and is therefore The Returner (even though the posters make it look like Kaneshiro Takeshi's character is The Returner).

I used to be one of those people who hates watching subtitles, but after watching dozens of Hong Kong films, I've gotten used to it, so I watched Returner first in the original Japanese, then in dubbed English. I must say that the English dub sucks. They tried TOO HARD to stretch English dialog over slow moments of Japanese lip movement, and the English voice acters didn't sound like they cared at all about the characters they played. (The leads sounded goofy and the old woman always sounded like she was on her death bed.)

In short, Returner is a fun movie, and for the best viewing experence, you should watch it in the orignal Japanese.

I first saw parts of this movie on TV several months ago and thought it looked pretty good. The plot is an old one, one lone time-traveler in a desparate last ditch effort to save the future by altering the past, but is done better than many American movies I've seen.
The most confusing thing I saw was the fact that for what is apparently a Japanese film there's so much China/ Tibet(where much of the future part is set) to it.
The characterizations were mostly good, that Yakuza guy was too comic book for me- watch your back around Miyamoto's boss -she'll get you, and I actually understood most of the story- would have even in the original Japanese (which I don't speak at all).
The fight/ action scenes were very interesting visually, not as badly overacted as some Asian stuff I've seen. The FX were good too, although I had never seen bullets zinging by a person before. The corniest thing I saw was the way the Deegra fighting gear looked- about all I could think of were the Transformers toys/ cartoons, which are also Japanese. Interesting how when a car blows up in this movie it doesn't just go BOOM!,it also jumps straight up many feet.
It's an Asian movie so you see very few non-Asians, all in the future Tibet sequence. I think there were 12 or 18(?) cast names listed, in English, in the closing credits, with a very few other names in other capacities.
At one point Milly promises to come back and help/save Miyamoto, interesting the way that is shown.
I found the dubbing to look unusually good for a dubbed movie, it worked better that the subtitling- who ever did that evidently did not do the dubbing. The music seemed very western to me, even in the closing credits, but I noticed that a Lenny Kravitz piece was listed, in English, so maybe it's all original.
I was happier with this one than most of the Asian movies I've seen, a lot better than some of the dubbed Jackie Chan stuff.

I originally bought this because the preview looked really cool and I thought Takeshi Kaneshiro was very good looking. I really thought it would be kind of mediocre at best, but it was a fun film. The premise is simple. A girl goes into the past to stop the war that she and her people are loosing. She runs into Kaneshiro. She forces him to help her. The action is nonstop. I thought that the characters were likable and the ending was happy. This film is geared to science fiction lovers. It has the typical Matrix like action that most films are sporting these days. If you like action and sci fi this is for you. Girls, if you like cute Asian guys, they don't come any cuter that Takashi Kaneshiro.