As time passes, the ideological fabric of society changes, shifts and even fractures. Such societal shifts often lead to certain cultural products becoming more difficult to digest. Due to these ongoing societal changes, a few of these cultural products, which despite not fitting well within the fabric of societal discourses retain their ‘cultural’ and ‘entertainment’ value, become the object of a process of tweaking.      

Yet, while such tweaking appears to merely reflect changes within the societal field, the fantasy that is painted on the silver screen also aims to determine the further course of societal change by showing the subject-spectator how and what to desire. The latest cultural product that has been altered for contemporary audiences is Yuichi Sato’s City Hunter, the brainchild of manga author Tsukasa Hojo. The result proves that such altering, i.e. the diminishing of the hero’s sexism and the erasure of his problematic exploits of masculinity, does not complicate the creation of a faithful adaptation. Yet, is this faithful adaptation worth watching?  

The narrative of City Hunter commences when Natsumi (Moemi Katayama), after realizing that impotence of the police force, tuns to Ryo Saeba (Suzuki Ryohei), the City Hunter, to find her sister Kurumi (Asuka Hanamura). The same night, a tragedy ensues. Not only do Ryo Saeba and Hideyuki Makimura (Masanobu Ando) fail to capture Kurumi, but Makimura dies after being attacked by the drugged driver that rammed his truck into the restaurant where he was having a birthday dinner with his adopted sister Kaori (Misato Morita). While both incidents appear to have no connection, Kurumi’s inexplicable escape and the feral and lethal attack on Makimura are linked to a string of cases of feral attacks and bloody deaths that plague the neon-lit streets of Toko’s nightlife district.

City Hunter is a prime example of a trick of all trades, but a master of none. Sato blends mystery, action, drama, comedy together into a pleasant whole, but nothing stands out, nothing succeeds in pulling the spectator into the narrative. While the blend of different genres does not create a disjointed experience, the refusal to fully commit to one genre robs the narrative from the emotional core that could make the presence of other-genre elements more impactful.

Sato tries to structure City Hunter around the element of mystery – who is behind the string of incidents caused by the drug Angel Dust and why Kurumi is a valuable target? – but fails to fully exploit its narrative potential – the few twists are delivered without much of an impact. The main reason why the narrative’s structure does not lend itself to the mystery genre or any other genre for that matter is the choice to turn this adaptation into a buddy narrative.

It is, in other words, by structuring the narrative City Hunter merely around the events that determine the course of Ryo and Kaoru’s relationship that Sato is rendered unable to fully develop the different genre-elements. Yet, while such choice turned City Hunter into an emotionally bland genre-mix, Sato’s narrative still succeeds in delivering an interesting thematical exploration of the phallic function for men.     

The way Ryo, our city hunter, turns female subjects into sexual objects to be seduced or to visually ravish proves that his logic within the societal field is determined by the phantasmatic assumption of the phallus. The uninhibited nature of his sexualizing acts and signifiers – Yes, you make me so mokkori – is function of his pious belief that he possesses what the female Other desires. However, and this is fundamental, he can only indulge in this phantasmatic position when a female subject is around, when a phallic prosthetic presents itself (e.g. one or more hostesses, a porn-DVD, a sexy police officer, …).  

As the narrative emphasizes Ryo’s unabashed phallic position, it should not surprise us that the comical moments are all about revealing the artificial nature of possessing this phantasmatic object – e.g. Ryo missing his jump and crashing into a soap land, police officer Saeko’s firm refusal to be his seductive approach, his inability to pay his tabs, him falling victim to women’s trickery, … etc. (Narra-note 1). The laughs and smiles are generated by letting spectators understand that the phallus, while taken possession off by the male subject in phantasy, has no material reality; that the phallus is merely a semblance to cover up one’s symbolic castration.

The fact that the phallus needs to be absent from the field to have its effect on desire and to play its role in the fantasy of having it is illustrated by Ryo’s striptease dance. During this dance, he merely teases the female spectators by veiling the phallus with a variety of objects. Were Ryo to lift the veil, the mendacious nature of this playful seduction would be revealed – the phallus deflates, a miserable member for all to see. 

The composition of City Hunter is highly dynamic and often sports fast-paced cutting. What stands out in the framing of the action-sequences are not the choreographies, but Sato’s emphasis on creating visually pleasing action-moments. Rather than tracking the whole of the choreography, Yuichi Sato offers a more cut-up-like concatenation of visual moments that aim to impress and please the spectator. While the dynamism that marks the framing of these sequences give the unfolding of the action-moments a pleasing flow, the surges of visual pleasure lie in the rhythm of static moments (Cine-note 1).

Yet, while this way of framing action delivers some visual pleasure, it comes at the cost of delivering tension. Some action-sequences would have been more enjoyable if Sato did not only emphasize cool-moments, but also the choreography that leads up to these moments. The failure to find such balance hurts the final battle the most – a visual pleasure, yet not exciting enough.   

The composition does not merely emphasize Ryo’s unrepressed sexual desire by interweaving close-ups of voluptuous breasts, zoom-ins on the deep decollete, and so on in the visual fabric but forces the spectator – male and female – to share his sexualizing look. The spectator is, in other words, given the permission to satisfy his scopic drive by enjoying the coinciding of sexualizing or phallic gaze of the camera with his own.

With City Hunter, Yuichi Sato succeeds in creating a fun experience, yet one that is also very forgettable. What dooms this narrative to this fate is Sato’s unwillingness to compositionally support the myriad of genres the narrative tries to juggle together. City Hunter delivers a bit of everything, but in a manner that is to bland to impress and satisfy the spectator thoroughly.

Notes

Narra-note 1: The light-heartedness of the dynamic between Ryo and Saeko is function of the playful contrast between having and not having. It is Saeko’s possession of a phallic object – i.e. the gun – that further emphasize Ryo’s structural position of not having what the female Other desires.

In other words, Saeko’s refusal to function as phallic prosthetic lays bare the phantasmatic nature of his assumption of the phallus.

Cine-note 1: The most extreme version of this stylistic choice are the four action-still-lives within the composition. These still-lives, the freezing of a character’s motion, emphasize the elegance of the bodily shape in the state of fighting. In some cases, these frozen moments also raise the spectator’s anticipation for the violence that will follow.