City Hunter

Yuichi Sato never lets physics or storytelling get in the way of a good time.

“For the good of the Union!”

Some time back I looked at the 1993 Wong Jing film City Hunter, an adaptation of Tsukasa Hojo’s manga of the same name. Jackie Chan starred as its main character, playing against type somewhat and while the film was perfectly good fun – something I don’t often say about Wong Jing – it felt not very distinct as a work of art, and less so as a piece of adapted film. Since then, City Hunter has returned to the big screen a few times, almost always animated, so it’s about time that it got a proper Japanese-language film.

Ryo Saeba (Ryohei Suzuki) is a private investigator of sorts, who finds lost people in Tokyo with his partner Makimura (Masanobu Ando). They’re hired to find missing cosplayer Kurumi (Asuka Hanamura), but when they do discover her, they find her hopped on a sort of super serum drug that has been causing people to go crazy all over Tokyo. Shortly after Makimura is killed by someone on these drugs, and Ryo teams up with Makimura’s adopted sister Kaori (Misato Morita) to uncover the truth behind Makimura’s death.

I don’t have the biggest knowledge of the City Hunter franchise, but from what I know this story is based off the Angel Dust storyline, of which there was an animated version only a few years ago. This telling is a bit silly, and probably forces you to suspend your disbelief more than a couple times. It’s a story about a new drug that turns people into maniacs which introduces a pharmaceutical CEO fifteen minutes through. Hardly a head scratcher. Those looking for something meatier will get what they want in the times when the film delves into Ryo’s backstory and that of his friends.

With that in mind, fans are going to get a kick out of this one, as it includes more winks to the franchise and respects its source material more than some other films – though I have heard that the French one isn’t half bad either – but I think people new to the franchise might be a bit lost. It’s nothing that ruins the movie, but the way every character knows each other already, and the ways in which they refer to their backstories suggests a level of previous knowledge is best to fully enjoy this film.

A film like this can’t really escape that adaptation feeling, while staying true to its source. It’s the same thing that I mentioned with Kitty the Killer last week. The difference here is that City Hunter actually has source material, and anyone can bone up on the lore if they ever feel out of their depth. Not everything needs to have an origin story (I’m certainly glad this wasn’t one), but having those origins available makes a product like this far more accessible.

Speaking of the movie’s faithfulness to source material, Suzuki plays an excellent Ryo, switching between the sleazy playboy character and the real, hard-boiled detective, whose gun-toting skills are second to none. The action is slick, and gives a real sense of comic book excess, straddling the border of what constitutes sensible gunplay but still manages to feel like the stakes are high. At the end of the day, City Hunter isn’t a half bad action comedy, with more than a good few laughs, that gives fans enough of what they want while not entirely alienating newbies. It might even get people into the series, without resorting to putting Jackie Chan in a Chun Li outfit.

Verdict: Made to appeal to a wider audience, City Hunter wants to please fans and newcomers alike, and mostly succeeds.

Overall entertainment: 7/10
Violence: 4/10
Sex: 2/10
Logic: 3/10
Jokes: 7/10
Miruku: An anagram of Kurumi! I get it now!
“She’s the girl in the carton from Milk village?” What in the fuck does that even mean?
Iconic “City Hunter!” sting: None

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City Hunter (2024)
Japanese

Director: Yuichi Sato
Writers: Tsukasa Hojo, Tatsuro Mishima

CAST

Ryohei Suzuki – Ryo Saeba
Misato Morita – Kaori Makimura
Masanobu Ando – Hideyuki Makimura
Fumino Kimura – Saeko Nogami
Tetta Sugimoto – Ito
Ayame Misaki – Tsukino Seta
Takaya Sakoda – Kunio Konno