City Hunter (

1993

) ½

By this point I know what to expect from Chinese comedies: A lot of low-brow jokes about sex and/or shit, outrageous costumes, slapstick that seems straight out of a silent movie, and fight choreography that is better than 95% of Western action movies. City Hunter does not disappoint in any of these areas, but to call it a typical Chinese comedy would be a disservice. It’s not a typical anything. Indeed, even for those steeped in the idiosyncrasies of Asian films, City Hunter stands out as something unusual. Like Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991), it has that peculiar brand of wackiness that seems to be unique to live-action adaptations of anime, though here expressed in the form of exaggerated characters, costumes, and expressions rather than gore and special effects. There’s a musical number that comes out of nowhere and then immediately returns to the void never to be referenced again or repeated and a scene where characters momentarily transform into the cast of Street Fighter 2 [1991]. I can’t say that City Hunter is 100% enjoyable, but it is an utterly unique film and as fine an example of 1990s Hong Kong insanity as I’ve ever seen. There’s plenty here to annoy most viewers, but I’m sure that somewhere in the film’s slender runtime you’ll find something that floors you with its insanity and technical audacity.

The backstory is as puzzling as the rest of the film. In the opening sequence, we are introduced to both the titular City Hunter (which is perplexingly his given name and not some sort of title) and his deceased partner who proceed to fill us in on their history together, complete with surreal multi-color backdrops and slapstick humor. Years earlier, City Hunter’s partner died when he was ambushed by gangsters, as he lay dying he made one last request to City Hunter: Raise his sister Kaori and never under any circumstances seduce her. Note, if you ever feel the need to add that last bit onto a request to raise your orphaned sister, consider finding a different guardian for her in your remaining moments on this earth! City Hunter agrees because Kaori is just a kid and he’s not a pedophile, but overlooked a crucial detail: little girls grow up. Apparently, raising her for six or seven years hasn’t made City Hunter any less interested in her, which is kind of screwed up and makes it rather difficult for the audience to see him as a hero. What’s even odder is that Kaori is into City Hunter (in the usual anime Tsundere fashion where she constantly criticizes and derides him) and gets downright infuriated when he keeps refusing to seduce her, and instead goes for other girls. It’s the kind of romance that could only ever make sense in a manga or anime, and seeing it translated to live-action, by a non-Japanese film studio no less, is just outright baffling.

City Hunter is recruited by a Japanese newspaper tycoon to find his runaway daughter, Shizuko Imamura, and for a short bit in the film, he actually makes an effort to accomplish this task. He locates the girl in a skate park and tries to take her back with him, only to run afoul of her skateboard hooligan friends. The ensuing chase scene/fight where Jackie Chan alternated between landing sick skateboarding tricks and battling the young punks who pursue him is guaranteed to trigger someone’s nostalgia for the 1990s. However, after losing track of Shizuko, he gives up and heads home (a bizarre apartment that resembles a cross between a garage and a luxury penthouse) to grab a bite to eat and unwind. Unfortunately, City Hunter has no chance to do so before he’s ambushed by a gang of vengeful women, out to seduce and murder him for putting their boyfriends in jail. Kaori shows up but only gets mad at City Hunter for daring to talk to other women, and leaves in a huff, leaving City Hunter to manage his own escape from the female criminals.

Once City Hunter has evaded his captors, he banishes all thoughts of ever finding Shizuko Imamura and chases after Kaori instead who has just boarded a luxury cruise with her nerdy cousin as an escort. Fortunately for him, Shizuko has just gotten on the same ship in an attempt to hide from City Hunter’s half-hearted pursuit. Unfortunately, City Hunter has no ticket for the ship and has to stowaway in the baggage compartment. He still hasn’t gotten a bite of lunch, and once aboard the ship events seem to conspire to keep him from getting so much as a slice of toast in his mouth. First, it’s the ship’s crew angry that he’s snuck onboard, then it’s the terrorists who take over the ship about midway through the film. The terrorists are led by a former American commando named MacDonald, who somehow smuggled a small army of gun-totting psychopaths onto the luxury cruise liner (at times it seems like there are more goons than potential hostages). The terrorists seem to have been imagined by someone who watched Die Hard (1988) and didn’t realize that Hans and his thugs were only pretending to be political extremists to disguise their attempted robbery. Neither MacDonald nor any of his subordinates articulate any real political grievances, instead, they seem totally focused on financial reward. The terrorists plan to Shanghai the whole ship and all its passengers off to Bangkok, where they’ll ransom the hostages that can pay and sell the rest into slavery. In the mean-time, MacDonald amuses himself by playing cards with the hostages and killing any that he wins against with a comically oversized handgun.

The proper authorities weren’t unprepared for this attack though, one of the roughly 10,000 armed goons must have let something slip, and the police have sent two agents to keep an eye on things. One of them is Saeko Nogami, a serious policewoman, who has packed enough guns to overthrow a small nation in her carry on, and the other is her ditzy comic relief sidekick whose breasts are so large that it’s all she can do to stay standing upright. Obviously, the former is going to be much more help in the coming crisis, though on her own she wouldn’t be able to do much against the small army of terrorists. Fortunately, she’ll get a bit of help from the perpetually malnourished City Hunter as well as some assistance from a pretty-boy gambler, Kao Ta, who fights with razor-sharp playing cards and seems to have wandered in from a separate action movie for how well he meshes with the other characters and the main plotline.

I’ll confess to losing interest in City Hunter towards the middle of the movie. There’re way too many characters, way too much dumb comic relief (I can see how director Wong Jing earned his reputation as the king of low-brow Hong Kong comedy), and an extremely annoying musical number that springs up out of nowhere. However, the second half of the film did a lot to alleviate my annoyance with it. The action sequences are of course, superb. The final battle in particular between City Hunter and MacDonald is inspired. The fight goes through multiple stages, as MacDonald switches his weapons, and is impressive just in terms of its length and professionalism. Best of all though is the way the two characters approach the fight, MacDonald is completely serious throughout, approaching the fight like the brutal life-or-death struggle it really is. City Hunter, on the other hand, looks like he’s just clowning around, and in the middle of various fight scenes switches from careful sparring moves to goofy dance steps (in one memorable moment, he even busts out the moonwalk). City Hunter also faces off against a pair of NBA rejects, who have him thoroughly trounced when it comes to weight and reach, but fortunately, he gets the upper hand thanks to a couple of strategies borrowed from Game of Death (1978); Hong Kong plagiarism isn't confined just to Western films.

Best of all through is the surreal moment when City Hunter and a couple of his acquaintances are electrified by a malfunctioning arcade cabinet and transform into characters from Street Fighter 2 [1991]. It has got to be the most literal and loving adaptation that a video game has ever gotten on the big screen. All the absurdities of the fighting game are transported into the live-action world, characters breath fire, have their limbs transform into a blur of flying fists, and float through the air. It’s absurd and extremely entertaining even before Jackie Chan transforms into a drag queen Chung-li and after that, it’s simply too bizarre to be missed.