"City Hunter" left for half his life and finally returned to his homeland.
In the past two years, Netflix has created many "Ye Qing Hui" moments.
First, the live-action version of "One Piece" was launched.
This is followed by "The White Book of You".
Not only is the reputation good, but it also awakens the enthusiasm and emotion of many people when they were chasing it.
Another anime that I loved when I was younger, released in a live-action version.
It's still produced by Netflix, but this time it's not an adaptation of a drama, but a 102-minute movie.
In terms of influence, it is also a classic that cannot be ignored in the history of Japanese comics.
As soon as it was launched yesterday, it opened the dusty memories of countless people - Tsukasa Hojo's "City Hunter".
It is certainly not easy for a work of the 80s to be changed into a contemporary film.
The most likely problem is that it tastes bad.
Not to mention, there is also the Hong Kong version
And the Japanese version of the jewel in front.
Unexpectedly, after the release, this time the netizen evaluation was really unanimous: it has the taste of the original comics, and it is finally not changed by magic.
It's so good? I read it in one go, to be honest, it smells so good!
Especially when the familiar melody of "GET WILD" is the theme song at the end of the credits, it all pays off.
01
"City Hunter" was born out of nowhere, which is earlier than the Japanese manga triumvirate in the 1990s: "Dragon Ball", "Slam Dunk", and "Yuyou Hakusho", but it is definitely a mountain in the comic industry.
In 1985, "The Three Sisters of Cat's Eye" came to an end, and Tsukasa Hojo began serializing "City Hunter" in "Weekly Shonen Jump", until 1991, when the manga ended, Tsukasa Hojo drew characters from it and drew "Angel Heart".
As of August 22, 2017, City Hunter has sold more than 50 million copies.
"City Hunter" has 4 TV anime and 4 theatrical anime, and 3 TV Specials.
In 2011, Lee Chang-ho and Park Min Young also launched the Korean drama "City Hunter".
However, the most familiar version for Chinese audiences should still be directed by Wang Jing, Jackie Chan, Qiu Shuzhen, and Wang Zuxian's 1993 remake of the Hong Kong version of "City Hunter", although the cooperation between Jackie Chan and Wang Jing is not pleasant, and the box office of the Chinese New Year stalls is also average, but Jackie Chan's version was still rated by Japanese magazines as the second best comic film in history.
The latest version of "City Hunter" is a comedy film directed and starred by French movie star Philippe Lachaux, which was officially released in France in February 19 and finally achieved the sixth place in the annual box office list of French domestic films.
Domestic Entertainment also had a remake plan for "City Hunter", Tang Jili and Huang Xiaoming once planned to create a national version of "City Hunter", but the adaptation did not land in the end.
Even today, 39 years later, City Hunter still has a profound impact.
And the more classic the work, the more difficult it is to adapt.
But when I clicked on the Netflix version of "City Hunter", I was instantly shocked by its degree of restoration.
Sure enough, the Japanese version of the classic manga still has to be filmed by the Japanese themselves to be tasteful.
It is not a mixture of stereotypes such as Kan Yu Liang and Shinjuku in Japan.
Instead, it takes the core of Hojo's ideology and art style in depth, and thoroughly integrates it into the content of the story.
The story structure of the movie is very simple, it is the standard handsome + funny + bad guy mode, and the entire movie content actually only covers the first half of the first chapter of the comics.
Of course, the most important thing in "City Hunter" is the coolness.
As soon as the story opens and the opening arrangement comes out, Kan Yuliang begins to chase the girl Kurum-chan on the streets of Shinjuku, contemporary Tokyo, and the feeling comes out immediately.
Han Yuliang was commissioned by a hot beauty who called herself Sister Hu Taochan to find her sister, and of course later we learned that Han Yuliang was tricked by a beautiful woman again.
Just after Han Yuliang experienced a series of miraculous operations such as beating gangsters and obscene Aladdin in the air, he and his partner Maki Village blocked Hu Tao at the mouth of the alley.
The accident happened: the girl suddenly burst her blood vessels, jumped on the spot, and directly crossed Han Yuliang like a superman, jumped onto the passing truck, and successfully escaped.
However, while evading pursuit, she accidentally lost two vials of GM injections.
Maki Village hurriedly picked up the injection and put it in his pocket, and hurried to eat with his sister Ah Xiang.
However, as soon as the two of them were holding glasses, a truck crashed into the restaurant, and a genetically modified person with a burst blood vessel burst rushed in.
Although the civilian hero Makimura resisted hard and plunged a knife into the opponent's body, the reformer was not affected at all, pulled out the knife, and plunged it into Makimura's body.
Maki Village went offline.
It also led to Han Yuliang's relentless pursuit of clues about genetically modified human injections.
And the instigator behind all this, the Alliance, soon finds out that he has messed with the wrong person.
The seemingly unserious Han Yuliang not only eats black and white, but also gets clues from the gang boss and finds out the ins and outs of the genetically modified human plan.
It was also discovered that Hu Tao, the only one who did not explode and died after the injection, was the key to the success of the Alliance's experiment, and used her protection to destroy the killers sent by the Alliance.
City Hunter, it's really powerful.
How could an alliance that let its subordinates blow themselves up at every turn, how could it be Han Yuliang's opponent.
02
At first, I was also worried about the magic change.
After all, the original work was made in the 80s, but the setting of the era has been moved to contemporary Tokyo.
In addition, it is a Netflix work again, will it be that the Oriental audience will pick the ground with their feet, and the Westerners will be happy to watch it?
Fortunately, this Netflix version is quite attentive.
All aspects are trying their best to reproduce the animation.
Let's talk about the original funny style first.
In fact, the most difficult thing to restore in the adaptation is the unique flavor of "City Hunter".
The structure of a tough guy detective film, nonsensical funny, and a hearty anime style.
Unexpectedly, the beginning of the film perfectly restored the style of Japanese comics.
The action design of the opening chase scene, the portrayal of the characters' abilities and characteristics, and even the storyboard and the action scenes in the first few minutes are almost like watching an anime from the nineties.
Although the story takes place in modern times, the nostalgia points are directly full.
The play is also constantly incorporating comic elements, such as Ryohei Suzuki's classic horseback riding cosplay, which is funny and funny.
Some of the picture freeze-frame shots deliberately used by the director are also standard Japanese comics, especially the shots of Han Yuliang shooting, which are handsome.
If you are a fan of Japanese comics, you may feel a lot of details from the live-action version, and I am sure that the screenwriter of "Yuyu Hakusho", Ryuro Mishima, is also a fan of "City Hunter", because he can be said to have restored everything that can be restored to you.
Many live-action works will lose the funny style of the original work, because it is difficult to restore it from the two-dimensional to the live-action version, or it is a different set like the French version, which actually becomes a French comedy, but the Netflix version completely restores the comic funny style of the original.
Secondly, there is character building.
When Netflix announced the casting before, the audience thought that Ryohei Suzuki, who had played Yuichi Fukuda's version of "Perverted Masquerade", would not be the second choice.
It turns out that Ryohei Suzuki, who is a fan of "City Hunter", has really become the biggest highlight of the Netflix version, and it is not an exaggeration to say that he is the most successful live-action version of Han Yuliang.
Han Yuliang's image of a prodigal son in love is both stylish and silly on the surface, and he is always flirting with his sister. All kinds of "idiot" behaviors that go deep into the bone marrow, and all kinds of adult magazines and videotapes are hidden in the home, which is extremely unreliable.
In fact, he is a city hero who has a perfect sense of justice + sand sculpture, and endures loneliness under his funny appearance.
Compared with the over-emphasis on the funny and romantic Jackie Chan and the French version, Ryohei Suzuki, who has acted in Taiga dramas and has been nominated for a Japanese film Oscar, really understands the core of the character.
Not only does the appearance fit perfectly, the body is strong, the posture of standing, holding a gun and firing is very handsome, and the tone of Akira Kamiya is deliberately imitated.
is really open to acting, even if he pretends to be crazy and stupid at his age, he also contracted the largest scene in the whole film.
The most important thing is that the kind of funny and handsome performance is indeed a perfect performance of Han Yuliang's obscenity but not obscene.
There are two scenes where the acting skills are explosive.
A scene is a critical juncture, and Ah Xiang complains about Han Yuliang's plan B without Plan A like her brother.
The expression that flashed on Ryohei Suzuki's face was funny and touching.
In another scene, the villain tricked Han Yuliang into joining, Han Yuliang put down the gun, approached the villain step by step, and then taught the villain to be a man on the spot, and finally pulled out the gun handsomely, both the action and acting skills are perfect.
Ryo Kan was never a pure comedic character, and Ryohei Suzuki performed it thoroughly.
However, in comparison, several female protagonists are almost meaningless.
Morita Wangzhi's previous long hair style was full of femininity, but when he changed to a hearty tomboy style flat head style, he couldn't look glamorous at all.
The modeling is still secondary, the most important thing is that Ah Xiang's character in the film is also quite bad, all kinds of intelligence reduction operations, although the final outbreak scene has blood recovery, but I still think it is the worst Ah Xiang in the live-action version.
Kimura Fumino starred in the female criminal policeman who played during the recovery period of production, her appearance is supported, and her cold and warm temperament is still there, but the taste of the role is still wrong, the whole film is tightly wrapped, but if it is not sexy, it is not a child.
On the contrary, it is two photo actresses, the walnut girl played by the bird of Huacun,
There is also the villain Lady in Leather who is obviously more brilliant.
Ando Masanobu's brother Shinmura has nothing to say about his style and acting skills, and his only regret is that there are too few scenes.
As for the cameo appearance of Mr. Akira Kamiya, being able to appear is for the benefit of fans.
Third, the plot is subtracted.
Unlike dramas like "One Piece", the rhythm is steady.
"City Hunter", which is only a movie, has made the ultimate trade-off in the story.
Only the part of the first chapter was taken, but fortunately, the story is simple and direct, the laughter is quite dense, and each scene in the first half adds laughter with baggage, and under the various exaggerated interpretations of the actors, the "laughing fruit" is not low.
The second half of the game is almost all the time.
The benefits are obvious.
The story is simple and straightforward, and the pacing is quite tight.
Coupled with appropriate changes, people can intuitively feel the enthusiasm of the protagonist Han Yuliang who constantly fights monsters and upgrades.
In the end, the action is outstanding.
I have to say that the action group of "Rogue Kenshin" has become the action guarantee of Japanese film and television dramas.
The action handling of "City Hunter", which invited Wu Zhi to the film, is quite clean and neat.
From the opening corridor chase to the stage duel in the middle of the comic exhibition, and then to the war site shootout at the end, it is a good restoration of the whimsical action world in the comics.
Especially in the last duel, Han Yuliang fought against the special forces of the entire alliance, and the fighting was quite imposing, which really made people's blood boil.
The main creator made full use of the environment of the scene to let Han Yuliang win skillfully.
In the face of the opponent's absolute strength, Han Yuliang is all kinds of ingenuity.
Either rush into the opponent's formation so that the opponent can't fire, or use the boiler explosion to end the opponent.
It not only reflects the difference in strength between the two sides, but also highlights Han Yuliang's fighting and personality style.
All in all, this arrangement is just right.
For ordinary audiences who are not familiar with the original work, it will undoubtedly greatly reduce the threshold for watching the movie.
It's perfectly fine to just think of it as an urban adventure action story.
For fans, it also greatly retains the brilliance of the original work.
Although it can't be exhaustive, it is enough to highlight sincerity.
03
In the list of the best live-action comic crews released by Weekly Shonen Jump, the top three were Rogue Kenshin (2012), City Hunter (1993) and Oolong Police Station (2009).
It can be seen that the Japanese audience recognized the Jackie Chan version, and the French version in 2019 was also a great success.
The Japanese version of Netflix is definitely facing Zhuyu in front, and it is easy to be complained about.
In addition, the comic book is a masterpiece, and the live-action version is not destined to be perfect.
But now it seems that the most dissatisfied with the audience is not the quality of the film, but the genre.
Because of the abundant volume of "City Hunter", it is actually inherently more suitable for TV dramas, and it is not a problem to shoot 10 episodes of one story per hour.
The biggest regret now is that Han Yuliang's casting is completely right, but only making a movie is a huge waste of successful casting.
However, this evaluation also proves that Netflix's production this time is still relatively sincere, and it has also been recognized by the audience.
Sincerity is sincerity, and some issues are still difficult to avoid.
First of all, compared with the previous work, the Jackie Chan version has Qiu Shuzhen and Wang Zuxian, who were at the peak of Hong Kong stars in the 90s, and Kumiko Goto, a Japanese beauty, plus the handsome dawn, it is not an exaggeration to say that there is a feast of appearance. Jackie Chan's fight is also full of joy.
The French version focuses more on short, baggage-style jokes, and the action comedy style is very strong.
And the Netflix version has an average appearance, although it maintains the cuteness in the second dimension, the sense of middle and second, the sense of atmosphere, the exaggerated painting style and the weird imagination, but the balance of affection and funny is still a little worse.
The plot that ends at a glance is too routine.
Some scenes are also very unreasonable, such as the female villain in leather who blew herself up in the police car, and the guy in the back seat came out, clean as if she was wearing a protective shield.
However, by the standards of an action comedy genre, "City Hunter" is definitely qualified.
Ryohei Suzuki's performance is even more genius.
On the whole, this live-action adaptation is undoubtedly intentional.
can naturally integrate Japanese comic elements into the story, and it can already draw a line with the Hollywood version of "The Three-Body Problem" that was arbitrarily changed in the past.
The film also adds many modern elements, such as Japan's contemporary cosplay culture, Internet celebrity culture, otaku culture, Japanese nightclub culture, etc., but the movie style is nostalgic, and the feeling of time and space is also wonderful.
For those of us who are Chinese viewers, it is rare to see the original childhood memories recreated.
For many people, City Hunter may be one of the first comics they came into contact with.
With the help of the feelings of IP and a good adaptation, the live-action version of Netflix this time should still be able to receive a good wave of clicks.
It can also be seen that after going from "One Piece" to "City Hunter", Netflix's Japanese comic adaptation is getting better and better: compared to the screenwriter's self-play, it is fundamental to restore the charm of the original work that has been tested by countless people.
I don't know this, whether the national drama that is good at making the original work into an idol drama can be used as a reference.