[HanCinema's Film Review] "Alienoid: Return to the Future" + Blu-ray Giveway (USA Only) #AlienoidReturnToTheFuture @WellGoUSA

The opening of "Alienoid: Return to the Future" mostly just recaps "Alienoid" from 2022. In that film, Ean (played by Kim Tae-ri) is plunged back into the past. The young girl then spends ten years growing up in the late Goryeo period (one joke confirms that General Lee is not yet King Taejo), searching for the Divine Blade needed to return back to the present. That, of course, was only half the job. In "Alienoid: Return to the Future" Ean struggles to return to the present day to seal the escaped alien prisoners that got all of them into this mess.

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"Alienoid: Return to the Future" is much like its predecessor in that it's a mash-up of a bewilderingly large number of genres, at times managing to be science fiction, wuxia swordplay, action cop, and oriental fantasy. In practice this looks about as silly as it sounds, which is pretty much the whole point, yet the internal logic is always remarkably sound. The twist involving the shapeshifting cats, for examples, is surprisingly coherent given the worldbuilding allows for nearly any possible explanation.

In general the twists in "Alienoid: Return to the Future" are fairly well done, because every actor is remarkably sincere, even as they always seems to be trying to upstage each other. The cliche of everyone finally coming together as a team in the climax is quite well done. As powerful as every character is on an individual level, their efforts are very poorly aimed when they only understand a small chunk of the overall plot and inevitably sound like lunatics whenever they try to explain what little they do know to anyone else.

Given the film's distinctive, fun, and often cinematic style, the main genuine mystery of "Alienoid: Return to the Future" is why this attempt at a franchise film didn't do better than it did. Both "Alienoid" and "Alienoid: Return to the Future" put together only earned about three million viewers at the box office. On paper, there's nothing wrong with the concept. Of the four box office smashes director Choi Dong-hoon did before these movies, "JEON WOO CHI : The Taoist Wizard" was also quite similar to this one.

If I had to pick any one reason, I'd just say that the "Alienoid" movies hit the unfortunate sour spot of the premises sounding way more intimidating than they are in practice. Aliens, time travel, and taoist wizards are all ideas that usually anchor the premises of whatever films they appear in. Despite all of these being blockbuster genre concepts, they don't generally have the same audiences.

Ultimately, "Alienoid: Return to the Future" relies heavily on the novelty value of seeing all these disparate stories smashed together. It's a bit of a tall order to tell someone that yes, the story does make sense and that incredible as it may sound, every one of these big league actors gets plenty of time to mug for the camera for sheer coolness and laugh factor. "Alienoid: Return to the Future" is cinematic chop suey- delicious, even if it doesn't sound like it.

Written by William Schwartz

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"Alienoid: Return to the Future" is directed by Choi Dong-hoon, and features Ryu Jun-yeol, Kim Tae-ri, Kim Woo-bin, Lee Hanee, Yum Jung-ah, Jo Woo-jin. Release date in Korea: 2024/01/10.

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10 copies available (US only), to enter the giveaway, simply type a message in the comment section below (you must have use a valid Email for your HanCinema account so we can contact you), entries will close July 15th.