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Technical Information
Studio:
Fox Home Entertainment
Year of Theatrical Release: 1992
Disc Format: 1
single-sided, Dual Layer
Image Format: Anamorphic
Widescreen
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Region Encoding: 1
Sound Format: Dolby
Digital 5.1
Running Time: 99
minutes
Director: Various
Stars: Wong
Jing
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Disc Supplements:
- Cast and Crew interviews
- Jackie Chan outtakes
- Jackie Chan photo biography
- City Hunter photo gallery
- Cast and crew listings
- Theatrical trailers
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Jackie Chan is not known for his serious cinematic
efforts. Part of the charm of his films is that they are as
often as goofy as they are action packed. Yet even by that standard,
City Hunter is an odd, strange film.
City Hunter is based upon a comic strip of
the same name. Never having read the comic, I can't say how
faithful this adaptation is, but the film does have the sensibilities
of a comic.
Chan is City Hunter, or Ryu Saeba, a womanizing
private investigator who has been raising the daugher of his
dead partner. The girl has grown into young woman and City Hunter
finds himself inexplicably attracted to her and she had a growing
crush on him. However, he made a promise to his partner to never
get involved with the girl and his constant flings are irritating
her.
She runs off to a cruise ship in an effort
to make City Hunter jealous. Coincidentally, City Hunter stows
away on the same ship while on the trail of a runaway. On board,
a group of terrorists have a plan to hijack the ship and steal
from all of the wealthy passengers.
As would be expected in a Jackie Chan film,
it doesn't take long for City Hunter to mix it up with the terrorists.
The setting of a cruise ship provides an excellent backdrop
for some spectacular, and sometimes very strange fight scenes.
In one sequence, City Hunter is electrocuted by a video game
and imagine himself into a real life Street Fighter battle,
complete with opponent Gary Daniels looking uncannily like one
of the game's characters.
If there are any problems with the film it's
that the strangeness may be just a little too over the top,
even for a Hong Kong Kung Fu flick. But the action is certainly
fun to watch. This isn't one of Chan's best films, but it's
certainly not one of his worst. City Hunter is from the early
90s, when Chan was fully into creating death defying stunts.
He has a couple of good ones here and some inventive fight choreography.
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top |
The video quality isn't the best
in the world here. There is a lot of noise in the picture, some
of it appears to be digital in nature, but some also appears to
be from the source material, which isn't surprising. These films
were often not filmed in the best conditions or with the best materials.
Still, the image isn't terrible. Colors and flesh tones are adequate.
The contrasts aren't too bad, but some detail is lost in the shadows.
As I mentioned, there is some digital artifacting and I also noticed
just a bit of edge enhancement.
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The audio is listed as Dolby Digital
5.1, but I think that's being kind. There is very limited use of
the surround sound and the dynamic range is a bit clipped. Still,
it's an adequate sound mix for the material.
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Fox has actually included a nice
little treat of extras for this release. Perhaps the most significant
is an interview section, featuring clips with Jackie
Chan, producer direcfor Wong Jing, and Rocky Lai from Jackie Chan's
stunt team. Unlike a typical fluffy press kit piece, these guys
are pretty honest with their thoughts and feelings, particularly
Chan. He describes his frustrations with trying to break into Hollywood
and his simple desire to just make entertaining films. As always,
Chan comes across as personable and likable.
Next up is something called
Jackie Chan City Hunter Out Take MTV. Essentially, this
is a blooper reel set to music, but as far as these things go, it's
not all that exciting. Chan is almost as famous for his spectacular
mistakes as he is for his wild stunts and there really isn't a lot
in the way of that offered here.
There are a couple of different photo
galleries. Both the City Hunter Photo Gallery and
the Original Promotional Materials section contain
groups of stills from the film and the Jackie Chan Photos
Gallery has some stills of Chan and a mini-biography of
his life and films.
Production Notes
features a cast and crew listing as well as a synopsis of the film.
Since the film jumps right into the action and many may not be familiar
with the City Hunter character, the synopsis is a good way to introduce
yourself to the story.
Rounding things out are theatrical
trailers.
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This film is just a bit more ridiculous than
I prefer, but it's still entertaining. Even a bad Jackie Chan film
is better than most of anything else in the martial arts genre.
Films such as this are something of an aquired taste and therefore
might not appeal to everyone.
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| There is quite a bit of
violence and mild sexual innuendo here, so it won't be appropriate
for much of the family. However, overall, the film is pretty harmless. |
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| -- By Robert Wurth. Copyright
© 2003. |
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