The Clone Returns Home

2008 [JAPANESE]

Drama / Fantasy / Sci-Fi

3
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 73% · 100 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.6/10 10 684 684

clone astronaut

Director

Kanji Nakajima Photo
Kanji Nakajima

Top cast

Eri Ishida Photo
Eri Ishida as Yoko Takahara
Kôzô Satô Photo
Kôzô Satô as Towada
Tôru Shinagawa Photo
Tôru Shinagawa as Teshigawara
Takashi Kikuchi Photo
Takashi Kikuchi as
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
1015.63 MB
1280*720
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 90
1.84 GB
1920*1080
Japanese 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 50 min
Seeds 100+

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by uncleeinar

A masterful and incredibly thought-provoking science-fiction film.

Upon winning the FilmMakers' Prize at Sundance '06 for the original draft of the screenplay, Kanji Nakajima continued to rewrite and hone his vision into a true masterpiece. This film absolutely blew me away. I loved nearly every frame of it. A thoughtful film about love, family, longing, and spirituality; Kanji truly weaves a compelling story around memory and consciousness. It absolutely bears resemblance to some of the classic works--Tarkovsky is often mentioned--but never to fault. The Clone Returns Home, to me, is the first great original science-fiction masterpiece of the last 20 years. It sits in great company with Solaris, Stalker, and 2001. The film moves at a slow, contemplative pace that will be difficult for some, but for a fan of the classics it simply doesn't get any better. Finally, I can't discuss the film without calling attention to Hideho Urata's gorgeous work behind the camera--absolutely stunning. I can't wait to see what these two do next.
Reviewed by sitenoise 6 / 10

For the connoisseur of deep thoughts

I'll start right off saying I'm not equipped to properly review this film but since my modus operandi is not to review films as much as react to them, I'll indulge myself. I'm not much of a science fiction fan but I love Hiromi Nagasaku so I checked this one out. The Clone Returns Home (aka The Clone Returns to the Homeland) is a heady, metaphorical, poetic, extremely slow and beautiful film. There aren't a bunch of fancy gadgets or spaceships, nor aliens running around. The only reason to call this "sci-fi" is the photographic tweak to things that makes it feel like it's in the future (it is), and the fact that the main protagonist is an astronaut and his spacesuit plays a big role in the film. And, well ... there's the science.The Clone Returns Home explores the notion of identity by way of cloning and spends a good deal of expositional time discussing it and the ethical milieu it exists in. It also spends a good deal of non-expositional time observing some guy carry around a spacesuit.Kohei is an astronaut who dies while on a mission in outer space. His company can legally clone him, complete with all his memories and feelings, as a sort of insurance reimbursement. His wife (Nagasaku) is a little freaked out by this notion, and thus begins the exploration of identity. Things get complicated when Kohei's memory bank seems to get filled back up only to a point in his childhood when his identical twin brother died while trying to rescue him from drowning at a fishing hole. At first I thought it was kind of cheap to use identical twins who, we learn through flashbacks, as children often tried to pass themselves off for one another, as the starting point in an exploration of identity. Even more so when this developmentally stunted clone goes missing and the company decides to clone him again, essentially making an identical twin clone. But then I realized the director wasn't trying to make a solid argument or theory about identity (or cloning) as much as trying to cook up a complex stew of ideas and invite the viewers in to sample all the spices. Just as it takes a connoisseur to fully appreciate the complexities of a fine wine, it will take a hardcore sci-fi fan to get her head around all that's being explored in this film. It's not for casual viewers. I couldn't begin to tell you who is in the spacesuit (which appears to be empty half the time), or who is carrying around whom. The film's glacially slow pace, meant to give the viewer time to savor the ingredients, of the film as a whole and the spacesuit in particular, will not play well at the mall.If I were a sci-fi junkie, especially one who enjoyed the heady and intellectual stuff, I might give The Clone Returns Home ten stars. But I'm not, so I give it six ... which means your mileage may vary.
Reviewed by lilianaoana 7 / 10

Quirky little movie

A quirky little movie sitting at the crossroads between sci-fi, family trauma, identity and generally psychological drama, with a touch of the surreal or spiritual, depending on your take. It came highly recommended, but to me that's all it manages to achieve, quirky little movie status. It's a slow burn descent into family trauma and guilt (I was questioning the pretty long inroad into Kohei's childhood all of a sudden, till it all started to make sense).Yeah, clones are creepy. I have seen some of those movies. Not this one though. There's a lot of love here, and loss and despair and reliving trauma and the cloning is just the gimmick by which the character(s) are given the opportunity to explore all these. You could also argue it's a curse, sure. I don't think the writer/director needed to use cloning, but it would have been a different movie.Very little sci-fi, in case you're looking for that.
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