The truth is that I do not know too much about City Hunter, an iconic manga by Tsukasa Hojo which was finally made into a Japanese live-action film on Netflix, and directed by Yûichi Satô. Personally, my experience of the franchise has been with the 1993 Hong Kong movie starring Jackie Chan: this cheerfully dated time capsule of HK cinema is most fondly remembered for a Looney Tunes-esque scene where Chan cosplays as Chun Li from Street Fighter to bamboozle some goons. Similarly, the new one is also a martial arts action comedy with some questionable jokes although it’s definitely darker and more violent.
To be honest, I enjoyed this reboot quite a bit as it shows how Ryo Saeba (Ryohei Suzuki) became paired up with his frustrated sidekick Kaori Makimura (Misato Morita) by investigating superhuman attacks and dealing with Kori’s brother death who happened to be Ryo’s previous partner Hideyuki (Masanobu Andô), as well as Kurumi (Asuka Hanamura), whose disappearance remains unexplained. However, there are two main things wrong with this movie; that is how bad first quarter hour is and lecherous Ryo falling into a hoary old Japanese comedy trope.
For instance,
1) he oggles at the almost exposed breasts of Kurumi’s sister while she asked him to help her out in finding her lost sibling.
2) instead of going to investigate where he thought she was he sang about spying on women in bikinis.
3) upon failing to find her, he drools over Kurumi’s social media. In fact I said “My god ,this guy’s the biggest pervert” at least thrice within the first fifteen minutes.” Even though later parts of this show play around Ryo’s weakness pretty well, there still are many cringe worthy moments like when he chose to put on a horse head as his crotch during a convention, and the way it was shown that he was horny there by zooming in on cosplayers’ body parts.
The first fifteen minutes are also let down by some really dodgy CG, which makes the cinematography feel more like it’s from a TV show, with digital gloss and wide aspect ratio. Thankfully, as the film proceeds, the picture quality feels more authentic and less travelogue like, while it is clear that most of the effects budget went into Ryo’s sharpshooting skills and rightly so. Despite how off putting it is this opening does set up one of the best things about the film: its fight scenes a good example of these is where Ryo pulls off a goon’s belt and uses it to whip two baddies into submission – an interesting taste of what is to come.
Despite the faults in how Ryo is portrayed in the film, Ryohei Suzuki does a great job and portrays him as an idiotic, yet professional detective when necessary. There are moments when I felt that his presence was commanding like Arnold Schwarzenegger but maybe it was because of his jawline. The question running through my mind is: does he act foolish or playfully carefree just to make everyone stay off guard?
On the other hand, Misato Morita gives a very convincing performance as Kaori that illustrates how dissimilar she is from Ryo and makes up for how dull the main villain becomes once unmasked. Right from acquaintanceship to friendship, I really cared about Ryo and Kaori whether she would avenge her brother or not and what exactly their conspiracy against Kurumi involved with them being drawn into. Such cyberpunk undertone lent itself well to this setting, fittingly representing Resident Evil as well; even one thug here who gets so high on drugs feels like Bond’s Jaws meets Batman: Arkham games’ Bane.
Because of its performances, plot and occasionally inspired action scenes that remind me of Jackie Chan at his best, some good jokes along with excellent soundtrack City Hunter ends up being quite a nice movie which will take you to Tokyo from your couch starting at 15 minutes. However, despite all these virtues there is still something about mokkori which makes me hesitant to recommend it to anyone unfamiliar with the series. I know this kind of crude humor has been prevalent in shonen manga since time immemorial (yep! “My Hero Academia,” I’m talking about you), and do not support any attempt to erase it from his personality in any way however subtle this aspect is actually subtly done most times.
In conclusion though it started off badly, I gave thumbs up for the movie while fully aware that non-fans have no chance, and that I am not going to convince anyone else who also does not like it into enduring it because saying “Yeah, Ryo’s a pervert, but he’s our pervert” (trust me it makes sense in context) will not help, plus this is just a movie. Thank God for Kaori I finally understand why Hojo made her Ryo’s partner; this is her story. I hope Morita dons the hammer again soon-bonking Ryo on the head for his inappropriate behavior.
Watch City Hunter For Free On Putlocker.