City Hunter (DVD)

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Ryu is perpetually daydreaming about pretty girls, whole swimming pools full of them, and Kaori is continuously dreaming of bashing Ryu over the head with a giant mallet. The jokes, like pies in the face, are ancient and largely juvenile, as are the many immature references to sex (without any actual sex taking place), all the while bullets and bodies flying everywhere as in an old Looney Tunes short. In this regard, interestingly, there are fewer spectacular stunts than in most other Jackie Chan films as well; I don't know why.

Finally, there's the matter of the dubbing. Whether you choose to listen to the Chinese or English track, the words don't often match the characters' lips. I suspect the film was dubbed in both cases, American English and Cantonese. Watching "City Hunter" reminded me of Woody Allen's old spoof, "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" The difference is that I preferred Allen's off-the-wall parody to Chan's out-and-out silliness.

Video:
Appropriate to a comic-book creation, the hues are bright and cartoonish, sometimes brassy, sometimes simple, with large splashes of dominant colors reminiscent of a cartoon strip. Outdoors they show up very well, indeed, with crisp delineation. Indoors, they tend to be more subdued, often accompanied by a smoky haze, probably an intentional effect to suggest mystery or romance. The anamorphic widescreen image measures an approximately 1.74:1 ratio, and it displays little or no grain, halos, pixilation, color bleed-through, or moiré effects.

Audio:
The audio is advertised as being remixed in Dolby Digital 5.1, but you couldn't prove it by me. There was so little surround information coming from the rear channels I had to stop and check the level balances of my speaker system to be sure they were still functioning properly. They were. Putting my ear to a rear speaker I detected a faint signal from "City Hunter." The front speakers produce a decent stereo image, though, with a frequency balance that is very clear if somewhat thin and bright.

Extras:
The bonus items include, foremost, some "exclusive" interviews with the cast and crew: Jackie Chan, director Wong Jing, and stuntman Rocky Lai. I've never heard Chan so serious or so frank in an interview before as he explains his early disappointment in making films in Hollywood. He didn't think American audiences understood Chinese action movies or Chinese humor, but apparently in the intervening decade between then and now he's figured something out; his Hollywood films are more popular than ever. There are also twenty scene selections, a new "City Hunter" outtakes MTV music video, a Jackie Chan movie photo gallery and biography, a photo gallery for "City Hunter," and several theatrical trailers for other Fox films among the extras, with a choice of Chinese or English spoken languages and subtitles.

Parting Shots:
The fact that Jackie Chan never made a "City Hunter II" or reprised the Ryu Saeba character should tell you something. Maybe he felt the movie was pretty frivolous and far-out even by his standards.

Although I have never seen the comic strip or anime that "City Hunter" is based on, I understand this live-action movie is very much like them in style and spirit. However, this does not necessarily make for a good movie, especially as the comic strip and anime appear to be aimed at adolescents who may not care how well their hero translates to the screen. My guess is that if you like the strip and the anime, you'll probably like the movie as well. Everyone else, beware.

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