Too much grace for fans of Ryo Saeba, the detective born on the pages of the cult manga by Tsukasa Hōjō: after the excellent cinematic anime Angel Dust, a very faithful version with well-chosen real actors arrives on Netflix
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
“With chance and luck, you can go back and fix broken dreams”, says the most famous theme song of City Hunter, the legendary 80s cartoon based on the manga of the same name by Tsukasa Hōjō, from April 25th on Netflix proposed in the form of a live-action which appropriately serves as an origin story for the new generations. Produced by the Japanese company Shirous for the streaming giant which has now made the transpositions of classic manga a strong point, City Hunter truly mends broken dreams: those of fans of the Don Juan detective experienced by a handful of disrespectful live-action adaptations.
We will return to these later, but for now, it is enough to underline that Netflix is the first worthy live-action transposition. An absolute novelty, having fulfilled the impossible mission of finding the right interpreters to embody the protagonists, the former mercenary Ryo Saeba and his assistant Kaori. Ryohei Suzuki, probably the tallest actor in Japan at 1.86m, has, incredibly, the physique du role to impersonate the statuesque literary analog and also the agility and comic talent to impersonate a strong martial arts expert and a harmless sex maniac.
In the action sequence in which he massacres the yakuza and in the comic one in which he replicates Ryo's alcoholic stripteases, Suzuki proves himself to be impeccable and it is clear that the actor took the role seriously: he even renamed his Instagram profile @ryoheisuzuki_cityhunter. The marvelous Misato Morita, who in The Naked Director lends her small features to the famous red light actress Kaoru Kuroki, takes on the role of Kaori, the "angel heart" of City Hunter.
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
His version is perfect because Morita admirably manages to keep the souls of his irresistible character in balance: his idealism, humanity, and inner strength as well as his very little patience, his immense touchiness, and the implacable thirst for violence that he gives her superhuman strength when Ryo threatens the girls. An unrecognizable Masanobu Ando (he was the protagonist of the Beautiful Kids Return by Takeshi Kitano) is a credible Makimura. At the same time, the only one we have reservations about is the anonymous and chastened Fumino Kimura in the role of the sexy bombshell policewoman Saeko, deprived of her haughty provocativeness.
The City Hunter film is a good starting point for a prosperous saga centered on the Shinjuku sweeper: it works, as mentioned, as an origin story and as a contemporary reworking. The plot, centered on the spread of a military drug that transforms supermen into supermen, refers to the most important narrative arc of the manga's narrative, that of angel dust and the sinister Union Teope, both linked to the past of Ryo and Makimura's fathers. The film balances drama and comedy, flashbacks and world-building, comedy, and action, and it's all well-packaged.
The Shinjuku district is represented in all its vital, vibrant and licentious charm; the music incessantly repeats the notes of the anime's soundtrack, reiterating - like all the recent productions linked to City Hunter, the beautiful Get Wild by Tm Network (the group continually grinds out new versions, but we would have also liked to listen to Miyavi's cover ); the action scenes are complex and functional, thanks to Suzuki's physical prowess and the curious but interesting choice of giving him a martial arts style that evokes the Gun Kata of Equilibrium.
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| Image Credit: Netflix |
Some will criticize the excessively cartoonish tones adopted in some scenes - in particular during Ryo's mokkori attacks and the cosplay competition - but trying to reproduce the characteristics of manga in live action is a common cultural prerogative in Japan. Overall, City Hunter is a delightful, fun, and well-made action game, and a successful transposition that in strenuously striving to be - finally - faithful to the original - pays homage to a great classic at a single price: the lack of its own personality.
A fair price to pay to reward the ranks of followers of a cult phenomenon that has suffered a lot over the years. The case of the 1993 film City Hunter produced by the famous Hong Kong production company Golden Harvest with Jackie Chan and Joey Wong is emblematic; in fact, it worked as a comedy action in its own right but was linked to the source merely by exploiting its popularity. No one dared to watch the unofficially inspired Cantonese Meng bo from 1996. However, they all still carry the traumas of the horrifying 2019 French adaptation, Nicky Larson et le Parfum de Cupidon (yes, worse than the Gallic Lady Oscar from 1979 ).
A separate discussion applies to the K-drama of the same name from 2011 with Lee Min-ho and Park Min-young, which in addition to adopting the Korean names of the characters of Ryo and Kaori, reinvents the origins of the young soldier and repudiates his tragicomic register. An excellent series, but it has nothing to do with Hōjō's work. Netflix has instead learned that it is not worth attracting the invectives of manga fans with xenophile adaptations that can turn out to be successes (like One Piece) or sensational failures (like Cowboy Bebop), and lately, it prefers to rely on tried and tested Japanese productions, with a strong tradition and a solid experience in the field of manga and anime adaptations (Japan tries dozens and dozens of them a year): in this second case, the example of Yu Yu Hakusho is worth mentioning (previously Netflix had acquired, but not co-produced, also Rouruni Kenshin (Samurai wanderer) and Full Metal Alchemist, among others). City Hunter fans, Get Wild!