Ranked #788

City Hunter: .357 Magnum

A great series, a sad excuse for a movie.
When you imagine a series you enjoy, a classic like City Hunter, getting transformed into a movie, you hope for an epic storyline, that deepens and develops the characters, adds something new that couldn't be handled in the series, or, generally, something extra, not seen before. This movie doesn't deliver that product. At least, not entirely.

As for the art, soundtrack and vocal acting, it's all the same, good City Hunter that we've been used to all the time, and the main cast is as delightfully bipolar as usual. (As a side-note, City Hunter makes Hammer Space look GOOD.) In fact, the Ryo's past is explored a bit, to some interest, but still, it's annexed to the movie's main problem.
And that problem is, this is pretty much filler.
The story, unfortunately, doesn't fulfill the expectations one has towards a full-length feature movie, being a bit shallow, and having few connecting points to the larger continuity of the rest of the series. I'm no City Hunter specialist, but, surely, despite the mainly one-shot nature of the series, I was hoping for much more.

But, let's be fair: It's still a good piece of entertainment, and it's always nice to watch Ryo nearly get his head blown off for peeping. Good times. read more