City Hunter (1993)

City Hunter is a 1993 Hong Kong action comedy film written and directed by Wong Jing. The film stars Jackie Chan, Joey Wong, Kumiko Goto, Chingmy Yau, Gary Daniels and Leon Lai. The film is based on the Japanese manga of the same name. The film was released in Hong Kong on 14 January 1993 along with Wong Jing’s Fight Back to School III starring Stephen Chow.

Plot.

Ryo Saeba and Kaori Makimura are assigned to locate Shizuko Imamura, the runaway daughter of the CEO of a prominent Japanese newspaper. Kaori leaves in the middle of the search, unhappy with the way Ryo ignores her romantic feelings for him and flirts with other women. Ryo finds Shizuko at a skateboarding park and a chase ensues, but she escapes in disguise. Shizuko boards a luxury cruise liner, the Fuji Maru, with the ticket she found in the suit she stole. Kaori also boards the ship with her lustful cousin while Ryo sneaks inside to follow her. A terrorist gang led by MacDonald have plans to hijack it and take the rich passengers hostage with Police Officer Saeko Nogami and her buxom sidekick in pursuit. Staying next door from each other, Shizuko overhears MacDonald’s plan. MacDonald discovers her and sends one of his men to kill her, but she knocks him out and escapes. She then bumps into the ship’s first officer, who takes her to the boiler room and reveals himself as a terrorist.

When he attempts to silence Shizuko, Ryo, who had been staying there since his encounter with Kaori and her cousin at the swimming pool, saves her. When MacDonald’s gang arrive, the officer is killed in the shootout while Ryo and Shizuko escape into the movie theater, where Game of Death is being shown. To beat two towering opponents, Ryo interprets Bruce Lee’s techniques from the film. At the ship’s casino, a party hosted by the captain is interrupted when MacDonald kills the captain and terrorizes the partygoers, including Saeko and her sidekick. After robbing them of their valuables, he entices the rich patrons into a sadistic card game. A few opponents are quickly disposed of until Kao Ta, a skilled card gamer who uses his cards as shurikens, joins in. When MacDonald is distracted by seeing Ryo and Shizuko not far away, Ta and Saeko put an end to his game.

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MacDonald’s henchman Kim kidnaps Kaori and takes her to his room. When Ryo bursts in, both men fight before MacDonald and his men interrupt, capturing Ryo in the process. Kaori escapes, bumping into Shizuko, Saeko, and the rest of the main characters. They take down a gay terrorist trying to seduce Kaori’s cousin and prepare to save Ryo. The next day, Ryo is stood before a firing squad. Shizuko, Saeko, and her sidekick interrupt the planned execution, but are forced to separate by MacDonald’s gang. Shizuko uses her gymnastic skills to defeat one henchman, Saeko saves Ta after he runs out of cards in a fight with several terrorists, and her sidekick falls off a ledge and is left unconscious. Ryo goes into the gaming parlor with his hands still tied, but is thrown into a Street Fighter II arcade game by Kim and suffers an electric shock. This causes him to hallucinate and think Kim is Ken from the game. After a failed attempt to defeat him as E. Honda, Ryo defeats him as Chun-Li.

Production notes.

The name of the Street Fighter character was changed to “E. Honde” from “E. Honda”. This was because Chan had a contract with the Mitsubishi car company, and Honda is the name of a rival company. There were time constraints on the preparation of the film to release it on time for its release on the Chinese New Year. Near the end of filming, shots of Chan’s final fight scene with Richard Norton, had him doubled by stunt performer Mars to save time on reshoots. According to his book I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action, Chan dislocated his shoulder during production. The gambling area filled with televisions and a dance floor was shot in the Shaw Brothers Studio.

Box office.

In Hong Kong, the film grossed HK$30,843,062 (US$3,986,952), making it the fourth top-grossing Hong Kong film of 1993. In Japan, the film grossed ¥561 million (US$5.05 million). In Taiwan, where it released in January 1993, it was the ninth highest-grossing film of the year, with NT$46,360,950 (US$1,824,328). In South Korea, the film sold 808,329 tickets and grossed US$3.72 million. Combined, the film grossed a total of approximately US$14,581,280 in East Asia.

Home media.

On 23 April 2001, a DVD was released by Hong Kong Legends in the United Kingdom in Region 2. Two years later, Fortune Star released a 3 disc set on 29 December 2003 with two other martial arts films: Story of Ricky and The Dragon from Russia. In the United States, the first DVD release was a port of the Mega Star Region 0 release repackaged by Tai Seng. Later on, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment released a region 1 DVD in 2004 utilizing the remastered Fortune Star transfer. It was released again in 2012 by Shout Factory in a double feature single disc with Battle Creek Brawl on both DVD and Blu-ray.

All currently available versions restore a scene that was removed from both the theatrical release as well as the LaserDisc versions of the film. The scene involves one of Kaori’s suitors going on a rant about foreign tourists (to wit, Richard Norton’s band of terrorists) and saying that he hopes they die of AIDS in Chinese, only to discover that they understood him very well. The scene was removed because the film’s distributors were concerned that foreign audiences might be offended by the homophobic nature of the scene.

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Critical reception.

The DVD release received mixed reviews in the early 2000s, with a 50% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics praised the action sequences, but criticised the story and slapstick anime style. IGN concluded that “it fails as an adaptation but succeeds as a fun Jackie Chan flick.”

Cast:

Jackie ChanasRyo Saeba
Joey Wongas Kaori Makimura
- Leila Tongas Kaori as a child
Kumiko Gotoas Shizuko Imamura
Chingmy Yauas Saeko Nogami
Carol Wan as Saeko’s friend
Leon Lai as Kao Ta the gambler
Pal Sinnas Rocky Dung
Lo Wai-kwongas Chen Ta-wen
Eric Kotas DJ Hard
Jan Lamas DJ Soft
Richard Nortonas Col. Donald “Don Mac” MacDonald
Gary Danielsas Kim / MacDonald’s henchman
Yip San as Woman surprising Ryo
Josephine Lam as Woman surprising Ryo
Donna Chu as Woman surprising Ryo
Michael Wongas Hideyuki Makimura
Peter Lai as Man wearing white suit in store
William Tuan as Cruise passenger
Kenzo Hagiwara as Koji Imamura
Vincent Laporte as Vincent Vu
Mike Abbott as Mike Vu
Louis Roth as Cruise Purser
Bruce Leeas Billy Lo (archive footage)
Kareem Abdul-Jabbaras Fighter on Film #2 in Ship’s Theater (archive footage)
Lee Tat-chiu as Ship crew member

City Hunter (1993) Biography, Plot, Production notes, Box office, Home Media, Critical reception, Fight.