Returner (2002)

*Returner (2002)* plunges viewers into a desperate future where humanity faces annihilation by an alien invasion. To avert this cataclysm, Milly (Anne Suzuki), a young girl from 2084, travels back in time to October 2002. Her mission: to enlist the reluctant aid of the skilled but cynical Tokyo gunman Miyamoto (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to discover and prevent the war's inception. Their quest is complicated by their entanglement with the ruthless Yakuza boss Mizoguchi (Goro Kishitani), who holds a crucial piece of the puzzle—the first alien spaceship and its captive pilot. As a vengeful alien fleet rapidly approaches Earth, Milly and Miyamoto must race against time to uncover Mizoguchi's involvement and stop the impending destruction, blending sci-fi action with high-stakes crime drama. *Returner* holds a pivotal place in Takashi Yamazaki's filmography, serving as an early, ambitious showcase of the visual effects prowess and genre-blending storytelling that would become his signature. As only his second feature, it was a groundbreaking Japanese production, openly drawing inspiration from Hollywood blockbusters like *The Matrix* for its bullet-time sequences and *Léon: The Professional* for its central dynamic, yet infusing them with distinctly Japanese sensibilities. This film demonstrated Yamazaki's bold vision to elevate Japanese genre cinema with cutting-edge CGI, earning it significant commercial success and establishing his reputation as a director unafraid to tackle large-scale sci-fi and action. It laid the foundational groundwork for the grand spectacles and heartfelt narratives that would define his later, globally acclaimed works like *Stand by Me Doraemon* and the Oscar-winning *Godzilla Minus One*, making it an essential inclusion on a list of his best.