Written by Ross Locksley on 15 Dec 2022
The 1985 City Hunter manga by Tsukasa Hojo is looking down the barrel at a Netflix live-action adaptation. Because they've all worked out very well so far...
On the upside, City Hunter is a spy-comedy starring Ryō Saeba, a handsome wannabe ladies man, who takes on any case so long as it's presented by a pretty woman or someone he can empathise with. Which means it should be a pretty simple adaptation to make this time.
The series has received adaptations in France and South Korea, but the most famous is Jackie Chan's 1993 Hong Kong adaptation which made use of Chan's exceptional stunt talents and featured a wonderful Street Fighter II parody, complete with the star as Chun Li.
The new film stars Ryōhei Suzuki (Hentai Kamen, Tokyo MER) and will be directed by Yūichi Satō (Kisaragi). Shot in Tokyo, the Japanese adaptation will be the first to feature the city, and will retain Saeba's original longcoat from the manga, which was replaced by a Miami Vice style jacket with turned up sleeves in the anime adaptation.
We'll be waiting and praying that things go better than the Cowboy Bebop debacle that was Netflix's last foray into live action anime...
Ross founded the UK Anime Network waaay back in 1995 and works in and around the anime world in his spare time. You can read his more personal articles on UKA's sister site, The Anime Independent.
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