City Hunter, the review of the live action film on Netflix

We not only #live in a historical period of reboots and remakes, but also of adaptations from one medium to another. # Especially for nerd culture, transporting manga and comics in the form of #live #action, with real actors. # Some transpositions, however, already start at a disadvantage, since a manga would allow the most disparate follies while remaining absolutely realistic in the suspension of disbelief required. # Especially considering a feature #film that then makes it to the big screen. # The matter obviously becomes different, but in this it could help that it was designed for #Netflix and not for the cinema, as in the case of CityHunterwhich we tell in ours review. # The occasion? # The 35th anniversary which didn’t just bring the anime Angel Dust at the cinema, but also this latest #live #action arrived in streaming.

A plot that looks at the origins

There City Hunter plot comes from the manga by Tsukasa Hōjō and the subsequent anime series: Ryo Saeba (Ryohei Suzuki), a marksman with an infallible aim, as skilled in his work as a private detective as he is an unrepentant playboy with the opposite sex, suddenly loses his partner Hideyuki (Masanobu Ando) #, half-brother of the young Kaori Makimura (Misato Morita) suffering an attack from a mysterious organization that is spreading a virus in the city. # Star of the Shinjuku district of Tokyo, Ryo must learn to balance the various aspects of his life while running after any skirt that comes before him, and while instructing and protecting Kaori, who wants to discover the truth about her brother’s death and wants to avenge his ‘murder.

City Hunter: because it is a shōnen anime that made history

A neo-noir straight from the 80s

City Hunter, perhaps thanks to the noir genre to which it refers combined with the oriental #action which at the time gave an extra edge and a peculiar character to the shonendoes not have thecosplay effect Of Cowboy Bebop and, for some, of one piece. # Even in this latest adaptation, genres are mixed, both in the story and in the staging, with some action stunts quite daring and spectacular, aimed at sensationalize moments like the anime did. # Also there characterization of the characters maintains that spirit, being excessively over the top, with comedic moments and sardonic jokes often inserted to tone down the tension, just as is usually the case in anime. # In a #live #action the effect is not exactly the same but if you look at it from the perspective of the context in which it is created it acquires its own meaning, and in our opinion with this CityHunter we are in that situation. # Nothing is missing between Easter eggs and freebiesincluding the dynamic duo’s car and the Kaori’s hammerwhich made history and which the girl uses to scold her partner when he behaves too much like a Don Juan (we’ll let you discover the trick of where she’ll find it by watching the #film, paying homage to nerd culture).

Over the top characters

This is where the line gets very thin between realism and imitationhomage and parody, anime and #live action: the performers demonstrate that they know how to balance the different tones of the story, despite the risk of the proverbial shark jumping touch it several times. Ryohei Suzuki is a convincing Ryo Saeba, as well as the other interpreters (perhaps a little less that of Kaori, even if she has yet to become that determined young woman that we all know); # above all, Masanobu Ando surprises in the role of the deceased partner from whom the origin story of the #City Hunters to come begins. #

There is what will become Ryo and Kaori’s headquarters. # There is it femme fatale on duty whose case endangers both protagonists, Kurumi, one famous cosplayer (another homage to nerd culture). # There is the search for the truth about Hideyuki’s death and of the mysterious transformations that are affecting several inhabitants in the city who acquire strange powers of brute force and enhanced gymnastic abilities. # And there is a mysterious organization, as expected, behind everything that operates in the shadows and it is precisely in its crudeness that the #live #action acquires depth, bringing plot twist well placed and even unexpected deaths, to remember how no one is really safe and this is not a game. # Final note: directed by Yūichi Satō, the #film is set in the present day, so it had to update styles and characteristics, and by going on a platform that is always attentive to certain themes, it partly sweetened the “stalker” nuance of the protagonist, adapting it to a closer contemporaneity. # Nonetheless, overall there is everything needed to celebrate CityHunter. #