Niki Larson

Jackie Chan plays a womanizing private eye known as City Hunter in this Wong Jing directed movie. The movie is played for surreal laughs part of the time. But with Wong Jing at the helm of this comic strip of a movie, that is no surprise. When you watch this movie, you realize that Jackie Chan knows how to pick stories and direct himself better than anyone else.

I saw this movie on the Media Arts DVD released in April, 1999. The Japanese manufactured DVD has subtitles in 8 languages, including English and Spanish. The aspect ratio is 2.35 and the image quality is very fine.

Based on a comic by Tsukasa Houjo, City Hunter was made because a Japanese fan mentioned to Jackie Chan that he looks like Ryo Saeba.

Ryo Saeba (Jackie Chan) is asked to bring back Seiko (Kumoko Goto) back to Japan. On their way back, the luxury liner carrying both gets high jacked by gangs. Ryo, Seiko and others battle the gang inside the luxury liner.

The movie is made to appeal to both Hong Kong and Japanese audience, and actor Joey Wong who was popular at the time in Japan appears as Ryo Saeba's girlfriend. Kumiko Goto who was popular in Japan at the time also appears. All star cast of Richard Norton, Leon Lai, and Chingmy Yau also appears to appeal to audiences in both countries. There's a comical scene where characters that looks like the Street Fighter appearing in fight scenes.

This movie is bit different from other Jackie Chan movies, in that body exploitation with many men and women in their swim suit appearing, and overt comedy is part of the story. But the fight scene between Richard Norton and Jackie Chan is pure Jackie Chan movie.

Many people say this is the only Jackie Chan movie that doesn't work, but it is an entertaining movie with some good action spread in between.

An attempt to create a live Anime comes up short due to careless handling but the movie delivers on a couple of action sequences which will be one of the best of all time in the comedy/martial arts genre particularly Chan's fight scenes and the hilarious live re-creation of the Street Fighter video game!Chan is very game in his perfomance but the director just tries too hard to get comical/cartoonish behaviour.The director could have done much better with much less overkill and better soundtrack.The musical number also was torture and that one I recommend you fast forward.This movie is only for die hard Chan fans and big martial arts/comedy fans who know both Anime and Hong Kong style humor......

This movie is based on an anime series by the same title. And as such is quite different from typical Jackie Chan fare. For one there are all these cartoon gimmicks like weird flashbacks, giant mallets, and other things I can't quite describe but which give the movie a weird cartoon feeling. Some great fight scenes as always, and some beautiful women! (I especially liked the voluptuous comic relief girl). Go rent it!

Now, I've read a lot of reviews on 'City Hunter' here, and I seem to see that a lot of people have started claiming how terrible, and stupid the whole movie is.

Please, grow up would you?

'City Hunter' was originally a Japanese manga, or comic book.. so wake up, and smell the coffee. This is not a conventional martial arts movie!

This movie, to a fan of the manga.. which I am.. is absolutely perfectly done. It really is like watching a live manga book, or an anime, Jackie brings the sexist, dumb, yet cool and laid back character of Saeba Ryo to life! Also the actress who plays Kaori is excellent, she brings the whole crazy, childish, yet underlining love interest for Saeba Ryo to the plot. The huge mallet she strikes Jackie with during one sequence is actually something that has appeared in the comic book, what can I say, the Japanese have a wild sense of humour!

Richard Norton is a brilliant villain figure, and his right hand man ( So to speak. ) played by Gary Daniels is threatening, powerful.. but downright hilarious, sometimes.

Weird, yet funny elements include the Bruce Lee homage in the movie theatre, the sequence involving Jackie and the estranged wives of people he has put behind bars, and DJ Soft and Hard's bizarre J-Pop style musical number. It is so downright bizarre and disturbing, it is actually hilarious! I wish that they had subtitled the song!

I should also mention this movie has a rather catchy, cheesy theme tune, watch, or should I say listen out for that one!

Best scene of the movie has to be the 'Street-Fighter II' video-game homage, Gary Daniels firing Hadoken at will! And how many people can actually say that they have seen Jackie Chan dressed up like Chun-Li? "Yasai!"

Other honorable character mentions go to Kaori's Cousin ( The guy who seems to have very loose elastic in his pants. ) the 'slightly camp' guard on the cruise ship, and also, the cool, supporting good guys to Ryo Saeba.

This is truly, like watching a live version of the 'City Hunter' manga series, a fan of the series, or Jackie Chan in general will love it, however the more serious martial arts fans, I recommend you give this one a miss.

Truly, an enjoyable movie!