City Hunter is one of the most disappointing Jackie Chan movies I’ve seen in a while. There aren’t many of his movies I don’t like, even most of the really old Lo Wei era flicks. So when I say I don’t much care for a particular movie of his it carries more weight than someone who only likes Rush Hour and Shanghai Noon. Jackie himself has said that this is not one of his favorites. So what makes this one not as good? Well, just about everything. The story, directing, characters, music, and action are all weak.

The thing to keep in mind when watching this is that it’s intended to be a live-action anime for a Japanese audience. Maybe I’m just not a big enough fan of anime to like this. The hero is a bumbling klutz, a womanizer, and acts like a juvenile. I expected more of a James Bond type: suave, sophisticated, intelligent. He’s none of that. What’s ironic is some of the supporting cast, most notably the card player whose name I don’t know, is what Ryu (Jackie’s character) should be. This guy is skilled and smooth, but has a mere fraction of the screen time that Ryu does.

Ryu is a private detective hired to find the daughter of a wealthy businessman. You would think Ryu would do a little detection… no, most of his accomplishments are through blind, dumb luck. He ends up on the same cruise liner with the girl where the story shifts to terrorists hijacking the boat and looting the rich passengers. Ryu and some secret agents who have followed the terrorists on board must take on the villains. Ryu is feared by the terrorists even though it’s the agents that are actually their biggest threat.

Is Ryu typical of anime characters? Do the Japanese just like the loser-hero type? I don’t know. Ask someone who watches more anime. Most of the ones I’ve seen (few though they may be) do not match this style. If you’re into that kind of thing, maybe you’ll like the movie more that I do.

There’s more to it, though. Many of the scenes are very cartoony. That’s not always a bad thing, I loved the Mask, but to me it makes City Hunter silly without being funny. That may be more cultural than anything (going back to the whole Japanese audience thing), but part of what I love about Chan’s movies is the comedy so I doubt it’s just me not getting it.

One of the major parts of a good Chan movie is the unique Martial Arts action. City Hunter has very little of that. His sequences are few and short usually having 1 or 2 flips (or something similar) and that’s it. Now, it’s not the worst I’ve ever seen; there are some bright spots. Jackie has a really great move or two every now and then, and in one scene he imitates Bruce Lee who is on a movie screen in the background. Another bright spot is a Street Fighter enactment with Jackie as the Sumo wrestler (E. Honda I think?) then in drag as Chun Li. The special effects lack compared to what we’re used to these days, but it’s a delightfully cheesy scene. There are some good scenes without Jackie, too, with one of the female secret agents trying and failing to seduce a terrorist (one of the funniest moments) and Carrie (that’s the way her name is spelled in the subtitles although I think it’s supposed to be closer to Kaori) beating up another terrorist while making him think he’s being seduced. A lot of pseudo-seduction going on around here. It makes for good comedy.

Though it has the bright moments, the movie drags a lot. The plot lost me several times, and several scenes were boring and pointless. The music doesn’t fit the mood I thought it should have sounding more zany than dramatic or adventurous. And since I wasn’t already familiar with many of the actors, the frequent costume changes caused me to lose sight of who was who.

Content:
There is some violence which seems out of place since most of the movie is light-hearted. It’s not real graphic as far as blood, but it gruesome just the same because of Richard Norton’s ferocity. The fighting violence is tame. There may be a little language, but it’s barely noticeable. Despite Ryu being a womanizer there isn’t much sexuality. The worst it gets is him staring at a woman’s breasts, but it’s because he’s hungry and is imagining them as hamburgers. It’s not hard to figure out he’s always thinking about sex, but that is portrayed without actually being vulgar.

The DVD:
The good news is if you do like the movie you should be pleased with the DVD. Actually I might ought to back up. There are at least 2 releases of City Hunter, but the one pictured on the site here looks like the one I’m talking about. I’ll give you some specifics so you know you’re getting the right release. First of all, it’s BY FAR the best version of the movie currently available. And not only that but in general it’s got more to it than most Chinese movies. Fox has digitally remastered it. See? It says so right on the box. And the picture does look very good. It has 5.1 surround for English AND the original Cantonese language tracks! Wow! If I could be so lucky on other old Chan movies. I’m the kind that would rather hear the original language and read the subtitles. Part of the appeal to me is the experience of another culture and I get more of it with original sound. To get that in 5.1 is all the better. However, if you’re not like me, the English track is well done, too. You also get subtitles for both languages. To top it all off this has the widescreen version (1:85 anamorphic). So, as far as presentation of the movie goes, this release excels. And it doesn’t stop there. The case is plastic with some great cover art. The blue background and suave Jackie with Carrie (I think) looks great but served to feed my erroneous impression of what the movie would be like. The menus are colorful and feature animation and music. Unfortunately the same music track restarts every time the screen changes whether you access another menu or are looking through a gallery and advance to the next image. It gets annoying so you might want to have that volume control handy while surfing the gallery.
And now we get something that not nearly enough of Chan’s Chinese movies (even the popular ones) offer: extras. Yeah, OK, maybe they’re not THAT big a deal, but considering such things are rare on foreign films (at least the ones I’m familiar with) I was excited to get even what little there is here. In the credits of the movie Jackie does his usual outtakes, but there is a separate sequence of them in a music video format. I can’t tell you what the name of the song is or who plays it, but I was so wrapped up in watching Jackie’s antics that I scarcely thought of anything else during that time anyway. This is pure eye candy for any big Chan fan. There are 3 interviews that average close to 10 minutes each. The Jackie Chan interview is, of course, my favorite. It’s slow with lots of pauses but still terrific for fans. Director Wong Jing’s is harder to listen to because of his broken English but still interesting. The third is with stuntman Leon Lai and is subtitled. He tells some good stories about Jackie. There are 2 galleries: 1 with behind the scenes type images, another with promotional materials. They have some nice images but they’re too small. I can do without the frame and all the graphics if they would enlarge the picture some. The music gets annoying, too since it restarts every time you advance to the next picture. There are 2 trailers: the original Chinese one, and a newer English one. There’s a pretty long and well-written bio on Jackie, filmographies for 4 actors, a cast list, a crew list, and 4 preview trailers.

The Jackie Chan completist will want City Hunter, but put it near the bottom of the list. Check it out if you’re an anime fan or are into the City Hunter cartoon, but you may want to rent it first and make a purchase decision from that. Still the price is typically low enough that you can buy it for little more than a rental price which will be the major decisive factor for most consumers. I give the movie 2 stars, but the DVD gets an additional star because it’s above average for a re-released Chinese film.


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older