Published between ’85 and ’91 in Japan, City Hunter by Tsukasa Hojo it also became famous here only after a few years, first as a manga and then as an anime: the latter, above all, reached a wider audience, although cannibalized by a first Italian adaptation which censored situations and dialogues, to the point of changing the names of the protagonists.
While in Italy they were concerned about calling poor Ryo Saeba only “Hunter”, the Hojo series went around the world: it is still one of the most adapted in different formats; it has at least four seasons of the anime, various versions of the manga including an “alternative” sequel, several animated feature films, a Chinese film starring none other than Jackie Chan, a French fiction and a Korean TV series. Absurdly, the film on Netflix we talk about in this review of City Hunter it’s the first film to have been entirely produced in Japan and it’s also a great way to get closer to the story of Shinjuku’s horniest stallion!
An ideal fit
The new City Hunter on Netflix belongs to a modern generation of live action adaptations which, although not always 100% satisfying fans of the original works, at least have distanced themselves from the horrors of the past: the various Dragon Ball Evolution, Fist of the North Star and co. are today a distant memory, perhaps because the sector has begun to take enthusiasts a little more seriously, perhaps because contemporary technology allows a difficult transition to be better managed, especially if digitalized special effects are also involved.
Tsukasa Hojo’s, however, has always been a down-to-earth work. City Hunter is first and foremost a detective story that tells the story of the tasks of the sweeper Ryo Saebaa sort of private investigator who charges handsomely for his services, even if he is willing to work for free in exchange for a… “chat”.
Even before being censored in Italy, the original City Hunter anime greatly scaled back the mokkoria Japanese word that jokingly refers to eroticism, especially in the form of an explicit gag: Ryo is a lecherous man, perpetually hungry for sex, who persecutes his clients in the hope of getting something out of them but who practically always ends up empty-handed, either because they are smarter than him or because his assistant Kaori Makimura intervenes with her gigantic punitive hammer. Such a figure – however hilarious – would have been absolutely out of place in a contemporary film, and yet Yuichi Sato’s film does not give up on mokkori: there aren’t the memorable erections of the manga, obviously, but Ryo never misses an opportunity to ridicule himself in private and in public.
Incredibly City Hunter works. Director Sato finds an unthinkable balance between drama and comedy, while retells the story originally written by Hojorecontextualizing it in the present day: the film essentially narrates the first chapters of the manga and the story of Angel Dust, a drug that gives inhuman strength and resistance, but lacks reason.
A case that Ryo is following together with his partner Hideyuki Makimura will have tragic consequences, ending up also involving Kaori, Hideyuki’s feisty sister: she and Ryo will be forced to team up to solve the mystery, bring justice and save a young idol from the mysterious Union that produces Angel Dust. In just under two hours, City Hunter performs a true miracle, telling a self-contained story with a satisfying ending, but one that would lend itself perfectly to serialization, and it does so in a clear way, balancing action and introspection. The film slows down a bit in its central part, but you have the feeling that it is gaining momentum towards the climax, and it never gets boring as it also intelligently distributes the action.
Ryo Saeba is not only a depraved investigator, but also an infallible marksman, a martial arts expert and a soldier who hides a mysterious and disturbing past, yet to be discovered. The film cautiously reveals this dark side of him, making him the protagonist of some truly memorable scenes: the credit also goes to the actor who plays him, an extraordinary Ryohei Suzuki who is not only similar to Hojo’s Ryo in physique – he is almost two meters tall! – but who also throws himself into the role with great conviction, managing to nail practically every comedic beat, even the most embarrassing ones, and to be glacial in dramatic moments.
Sato’s film, in fact, lends itself a little when it tries to seem like the cartoon, but in the flesh, when it exaggerates the characters and their idiosyncrasies that in the real world would be unlikely. However, we appreciated the effort to recall the manga and anime without becoming too forced or cloying and maintaining a surprising fidelity to the spirit of the original work. In this sense, for example, Kaori’s character may initially appear a little sacrificed, since we don’t see her immediately take out her famous hammers to beat Ryo every time he overshoots the mark. The film finds an intelligent way to justify them, but seems decidedly more interested in defining the more human side of the character played by the talented Misato Morita: in comparison with her animated or comic counterpart, the Kaori of the film on Netflix perhaps appears less parodic, but certainly more credible.
The cast still works, though maybe we would have preferred a less rigid Fumino Kimura as Inspector Saeko Nogami: it is also true that the script allows little space for his interactions with Ryo, just as it does not allow any for other historical supporting characters such as Falcon, totally absent in this film as he was in the original version. The spotlight is instead on Kaori’s brother, played by Masanobu Ando, who, despite the limited time available, still manages to leave his mark in the viewer’s heart.
Then there is another great protagonist in this story and he is Shinjuku. The entertainment district of Tokyo is framed several times in montages and tracking shots that focus on everyday life which in Shinjuku is always a little eccentric, between cosplayers and hooligans, bright neon signs and lively nightclubs. City Hunter is a film that leaves nothing to chance and which demonstrates great sensitivity towards Tsukasa Hojo’s work, not only in its most intimate parts, but also in the action scenes, which are well choreographed, clear and also quite bloody though rarely macabre. In the hand-to-hand battles, it is clear that the director was inspired by Derek Kolstad’s John Wick: on more than one occasion, Ryo mixes punches, kicks and firearms in massacres that are not very credible, but damn fun to watch.
Ultimately, although the trailers had already given us hope, we started City Hunter with the fear that we would have to deal with a mediocre product, and instead we turned off the TV satisfied: the new flesh-and-blood adaptation of the adventures of Ryo Saeba is not a masterpiece, but an honest and careful entertainment production that, above all else, does justice to that balance between seriousness and joviality which has made us love Tsukasa Hojo’s original work for over thirty years.
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