The most endearing part of Alienoid: Return to the Future is Choi’s clear love of the materials he draws upon for inspiration. He takes painstaking care to create something truly original.

Alienoid: Return to the Future turns classic time travel tropes on their head in an attempt to breathe new life into a stale genre and finally give justice to the “Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.” tenet.

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.

ALIENOID: RETURN TO THE FUTURE is the sequel to the 2022 South Korean “Alienoid,” which I described as “bonkers, mixing science fiction, fantasy, wizards, time travel, aliens, martial arts, cats, robots, and enough story for several movies.”