This is one of my favorite animes. I'm not a radical or biggest anime fan, but I do appreciate some like any other genre and know some of the classics.
The popularity of this series peaked in the 80s. The humor and sexual sensibilities was something very difficult to translate into 2024's audiences. And especially coming from the Netflix brand. I was bracing for a Cowboy-Bebop-live-action-sized disappointment.
It isn't half as bad, fortunately. It leaned much more on what is considered normal or acceptable for Japanese audiences, but it might ruffle some western feathers if unfamiliar with the series. Be advised.
Ryo's actor, Ryohei Suzuki confessed fandom showed throughout the movie. He was able to portray the duality of the character. From pervy "mokkori" to serious "sweeper". Although it did seem like something was a bit off or lost in between. The transition didn't feel organic enough. More bipolar than actually the more complex character Ryo is in the series. It didn't come as confident and vulnerable at the same time as the animated series, but this is probably a really tough act to pull off with a live action adaptation.
Still, his overall tone was actually just enough for us to not forget this is City Hunter. Also worth mentioning is his impressive action choreography, both fighting and handling guns. I learned he also learned to drive a manual transmission only for this role.
Kaori's (Misato Morita) had in general a good Kaori likeness, but her two "big" scenes come out as an overly Asian-soap-opera-dramatic weep-to-scream, and pull me so far away from the original character I almost started hating seeing her on screen in the later half of the movie.
It feels as off for Kaori or CH as most of the humor in the movie. Speaking of, the mokkori dance is absolutely cringe-worthy. Ryo's horse cosplay and it's use for the action sequence was the only original element I found actually funny in the whole movie.
The film only really shines properly both in tone and visuals in the minute of epilogue as the actual Ryo Saeba that fans will remember. I wish this had been the case for the whole movie.
I'm aware it would've felt much more "animey" and silly to be like this for a full feature film, but maybe that's the issue when adapting a very episodic series into a full length movie.
Still, it was a bit all over the place tonally with some of Ryo's antics with the otherworldly shooting and fighting, as well as the McGuffin drug making regular people behave like superheroes, when mixed with overly serious/realistic/overly dramatic moments, and very goofy or even B-movie bits, like the cosplay parts. It all felt very messy and uneven.
It's trying to go in too many different directions. I blame the director for not being strong enough in his vision, if he ever had one.
Technically the movie is just held together with a few interesting lighting and effects. The action set in the cosplay set with all the audience as they fight is original and entertaining. But sometimes the whole movie feels very cheap, mostly due to the camera angles and lens used, or how they utilize the sets. For instance the area were all the cosplayers initially are, or were the final showdown illuminated with purple lights. They both belong in a cheap TV series and don't feel, or make the movie feel big at all.
The usual Netflix trope of the gratuitouslly graphic violence is present. The baddies once not useful to their organization, they have exploding bombs implanted in the back of their necks, similar to Battle Royale's necklaces. This has a couple of very graphic kills that could've been less gory. There's a particular kill near the end that feels really unnecessarily bloody. This feels so off for City Hunter it's almost infuriating.
The character Ryo is protecting spends half the movie being a puppet and/or scared, so we never really care for her. She feels like a cog in a mess of characters that aren't well explained or developed for those unfamiliar with them.
The story overall is barely serviceable for its purpose. But sometimes feels too contrived to put in some elements that are not moving the story forward, or are felt only three for exposition. I wish this had been put a bit more effort instead of playing it so safe and simple. But then again, I might be asking more than what the average person would expect from this type of movie.
Overall, it misses the tone. It feels a bit of a crime when the French movie got that right without many actual elements of the City Hunter universe. Even if the French movie wasn't in Tokyo, and neither have the amazing City Pop soundtrack (except the Netflix one, but only for the end credits). It was much more entertaining, fun, wacky, colorful,... it was charming. The characters felt like the originals better than this adaptation. So there's definitely room for something that feels more aligned with what the original brought.
At least it's not as different from the source as the Jackie Chan version from 1993. There was another City Hunter live action adaptation in between Chan's and the French, but outside Ryo's physicality, there wasn't that much to enjoy from it.
Still, this version is watchable if your expectations or knowledge of the manga/anime aren't too high.
I really hope there's a second or even more of these, just so we can see more of what we had literally on the last minute of this film. It's what this cult 80s series really deserve.
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