City Hunter (2024) Review

Crazy fun
3.5

Summary

City Hunter has no shortage of memorable action scenes and Ryohei Suzuki is well cast as Ryo Saeba AKA City Hunter. There are plenty of laughs and it’s well paced for the most part with an action packed finale.

Plot: An exceptional marksman and hopeless playboy, private eye Ryo Saeba reluctantly forms an alliance with his late partner’s sister to investigate his death.

Review: As usual I have never read the source material of City Hunter, so this is just a review for the movie itself which premiered on Netflix a while back.

This is a lot of fun with Ryohei Suzuki playing our hero Ryo Saeba AKA City Hunter; he is asked to search for a missing girl, but things are not what they seem and his partner Makimura is murdered, so Ryo teams up with Makimura’s sister Kaori to find out who killed him and why.

I love reading reviews by critics for this movie on Rotten Tomatoes who are all offended because our protagonist happens to be horny. Oh no! This provides a lot of the laughs in the movie as he has this happy go lucky personality and the ladies love him, but still can be serious when the job calls for it. The jokes are admittedly juvenile and may put some viewers off, but it made me laugh a lot which is rare.

City Hunter has some impressive fight scenes and a real sense of style where it feels like an anime brought to life. It’s for the most part well-paced and Ryo’s larger than life personality keeps the tone light never taking itself overly seriously. He can admittedly be a bit of a dick sometimes, but I feel like he is just trying to protect Kaori from his dangerous world.

The finale against a group of armed bad guys is spectacular and it’s hard not to have a smile on your face by the end.

Overall, City Hunter is stylish, funny and has some imaginative and hugely entertaining fight scenes. It genuinely feels like an manga brought to life so just sit back and enjoy the ride.