Take: 1 parts Terminator 1 parts E.T. 1 parts Independence Day A dash of Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within Put all parts in a Japanese animated blender set on Matrix mode, mix thoroughly and poor into the hippest cup you can find. Sit back, kick your feet up, and enjoy your refreshing Returner.
Almost all movies take bits and pieces of other movies and mold themselves into something that appears new and different. After all, there really are no new stories to tell just different ways to tell the same story (thank you Joseph Campbell for showing me this!). Most movies are able to easily hide their influences. Some movies however, wear their influences on their sleeves. And then there is Takashi Yamazaki's Returner. A film that not only wears its influences on its sleeves, but also on its head, hat, jacket, body, pants, feet and shoes. Its as if Yamazaki took all the things that he thought were cool about all the cool movies he liked, and threw them together to make something that was his own. Although sometimes the final product is a bit rough, the stitches do show through this Frankenstein monster, all in all the final product is extremely enjoyable and an exciting thing to behold.
Takashi Kaneshiro plays Miyamoto, a hound dog of a semi-Yakuza gangster who speaks softly and carries a large gun. While out on some kind of Yakuza "business", against his arch-rival Mizoguchi, who years ago was responsible for kidnapping Miyamoto's child hood friend and selling his bodily organs, Miyamoto's life is forever changed. Milly, played by Anne Suzuki, is a time traveling Japanese cutie that materializes amidst the Yakuza shoot out. She gets wounded, gets saved by Miyamoto and thus the two are thrown together to stop an alien invasion.
Milly was sent back in time, a hundred years or so, to destroy a single alien who landed on Earth. She thinks this alien is a scout of sorts that is going to send for his planet's army to destroy the Earth. A few plot twists here and there, as well as few action scenes later, we learn the truth of this alien visitor and I can safely say the ride was quite enjoyable.
The reason this movies works is that it doesn't try to hide its influences: it shoves them down the audience's throat. And when you're ripping off movies, it's at least a good idea to rip off movies that are exciting, action packed, visually stimulating and enjoyable. So now for the checklist of rip-offing:
1. Matrix style visual effects: Lets face it folks, the Matrix movies have pretty much tainted and jaded the way we see action movies now. At least they have done so to me. I want bullet time; wire-fu, sci-fi-kung-fu and I want it in spades. Returner handles this with a bit of great creativity. Milly has a device on her wrist which when charged up allows the wearer to enter into a few moments of bullet time. This gives way to some very cool action scenes, one in particular which just so happens to be the coolest gun reloading scene ever filmed, even beating out the great one in Equilibrium
2. The time traveling warrior who goes back in time to stop a disaster which will happen in the future, a la Terminator 2.
3. Video game styled, and inspired visual effects that include a war torn earth, transforming jets, space ships and aliens - perhaps the movie that Final Fantasy should have been!
4. An alien that looks like the head pilots of ID4, but is really just a cuddly little misunderstood Muppet - in other words, E.T.
If you are looking for something original, groundbreaking, thought provoking or mature, stay far away from Returner, as a matter of fact, don't even look at the DVD cover (Neo wants his trench coat and shades back!). However, if you are looking for a movie that is fun, action packed, hip and able to keep up with multiple viewings you really can't go wrong. And after all is said and done, as long as a movie is entertaining, and makes you forget about the humdrum of daily life for two hours, then isn't it worth the price of admission? I for one would have been happy paying twice what I paid!
Almost all movies take bits and pieces of other movies and mold themselves into something that appears new and different. After all, there really are no new stories to tell just different ways to tell the same story (thank you Joseph Campbell for showing me this!). Most movies are able to easily hide their influences. Some movies however, wear their influences on their sleeves. And then there is Takashi Yamazaki's Returner. A film that not only wears its influences on its sleeves, but also on its head, hat, jacket, body, pants, feet and shoes. Its as if Yamazaki took all the things that he thought were cool about all the cool movies he liked, and threw them together to make something that was his own. Although sometimes the final product is a bit rough, the stitches do show through this Frankenstein monster, all in all the final product is extremely enjoyable and an exciting thing to behold.
Takashi Kaneshiro plays Miyamoto, a hound dog of a semi-Yakuza gangster who speaks softly and carries a large gun. While out on some kind of Yakuza "business", against his arch-rival Mizoguchi, who years ago was responsible for kidnapping Miyamoto's child hood friend and selling his bodily organs, Miyamoto's life is forever changed. Milly, played by Anne Suzuki, is a time traveling Japanese cutie that materializes amidst the Yakuza shoot out. She gets wounded, gets saved by Miyamoto and thus the two are thrown together to stop an alien invasion.
Milly was sent back in time, a hundred years or so, to destroy a single alien who landed on Earth. She thinks this alien is a scout of sorts that is going to send for his planet's army to destroy the Earth. A few plot twists here and there, as well as few action scenes later, we learn the truth of this alien visitor and I can safely say the ride was quite enjoyable.
The reason this movies works is that it doesn't try to hide its influences: it shoves them down the audience's throat. And when you're ripping off movies, it's at least a good idea to rip off movies that are exciting, action packed, visually stimulating and enjoyable. So now for the checklist of rip-offing:
1. Matrix style visual effects: Lets face it folks, the Matrix movies have pretty much tainted and jaded the way we see action movies now. At least they have done so to me. I want bullet time; wire-fu, sci-fi-kung-fu and I want it in spades. Returner handles this with a bit of great creativity. Milly has a device on her wrist which when charged up allows the wearer to enter into a few moments of bullet time. This gives way to some very cool action scenes, one in particular which just so happens to be the coolest gun reloading scene ever filmed, even beating out the great one in Equilibrium
2. The time traveling warrior who goes back in time to stop a disaster which will happen in the future, a la Terminator 2.
3. Video game styled, and inspired visual effects that include a war torn earth, transforming jets, space ships and aliens - perhaps the movie that Final Fantasy should have been!
4. An alien that looks like the head pilots of ID4, but is really just a cuddly little misunderstood Muppet - in other words, E.T.
If you are looking for something original, groundbreaking, thought provoking or mature, stay far away from Returner, as a matter of fact, don't even look at the DVD cover (Neo wants his trench coat and shades back!). However, if you are looking for a movie that is fun, action packed, hip and able to keep up with multiple viewings you really can't go wrong. And after all is said and done, as long as a movie is entertaining, and makes you forget about the humdrum of daily life for two hours, then isn't it worth the price of admission? I for one would have been happy paying twice what I paid!