City Hunter Essay, Research Paper
The City Hunter is an action comedy movie starring international superstar Jackie Chan. This movie was made in Hong Kong in the early 90s. In this movie Jackie Chan played Hunter, a private detective with a good sense of humor and deadly kung fu skills. The story started out with a badly acted sketch of Hunter’s partner being gunned down by four men with automatic weapons. With his last moment on earth, Hunter’s partner made Hunter promise to take care of his little sister Carrie, and also not to seduce her. Seeing how the young girl was only about fourteen, Hunter gave his partner his word of honor to take care of the girl and also never seduce her.
The story took a quick turn with the young girl growing up to a beautiful woman. Hunter tried very hard to avoid a romantic relationship with Carrie, but the problem was that Carrie had romantic feelings for Hunter. This love story was interrupted with a group of women trying to kill Hunter for putting their men in prison. This was just a comic relief, so Hunter got out of the situation easily by fighting with all the women at once.
In the next scene, Hunter excepted a case to find a runaway name Yoko. This runaway was the daughter of a rich Japanese businessman. The reason Yoko ran away was because her mother died a few years back, and her father was going to remarry a woman that she didn’t like. So Hunter and Carrie set out to find Yoko. Hunter got lucky and he found Yoko at a skate park. Yoko did not want to go home to her father, so she told her friends that Hunter was trying to molest her, and tried to get away. She managed to get away after going into a department store to hide from Hunter. In this department store she managed to trick a man to follow her into the dressing room where she knocked him out and took his clothes, wallet, and ticket for a cruise.
By some coincidence, Carrie got on the same cruise to get away from Hunter because he had not given her enough attention. Of course Hunter tried to come along with Carrie on the cruise, but he did not have a ticket for the cruise. The Captain of the cruise did not let Hunter on board, so Hunter stole away as a luggage. On the same cruise were two beautiful female undercover cops who had received intelligence of a gang that will attempt hijack the ship. Another interesting character on the cruise was a mysterious handsome gambler.
The stage was set for all the actions to begin. A gang with automatic weapons will have to fight against a mysterious gambler, four beautiful women, and Jackie Chan. Of course the gang didn’t have a chance against the heroes.
This was a typical Jackie Chan movie. By this I mean the movie was very entertaining, but plot was very simplistic. I have seen almost every Jackie Chan movie, so it is valid for me to make that judgement. In almost all his movie, the audience will be entertained. Specifically, in City Hunter, the action is very fast pace, so the audience will not have a chance to get bore. It is full dangerous stunts, and awesome kung fu fighting skills. Further more, the cast was full of gorgeous Asian women who could "hold their own" when it comes to stunts.
What made Jackie Chan great in this movie was not just because he did all his own stunts, but because he did not take himself seriously. He allowed the character to be comical, mixing great kung fu actions with comedy. For example, during one of the fighting scenes, Hunter his arms to block various blows from a man who used two fighting sticks, and after repeated blows the man got tired and stop. Hunter step back, held up his arms and showed the man that he was not hurt. But two seconds later Hunter step back shaking his arms violently, and shedding tears of pain. It is difficult to describe, but it was a very comical moment.
From a critic point of view, I have to say that the City Hunter was very entertaining, but some of the technical aspects of the movie need improvements. For example the dubbing was very bad as in any other Chinese movie. The voice and the lips of the characters were not in sync. The sound effect of movements and of hits was very "cheesy." It didn’t sound realistic, although it might have been done so on purpose for effects.
Another aspect of the movie that could improve is the acting. There were very little dialogs, and not much emotion to be expressed in the movie, so it would be very difficult for an actor in this movie to win an Academy Award for acting. Also from a critic point of view, I could blast the movie for lacking a story line and a more sophisticated plot. In defending it, I would have to say that Jackie Chan’s fans and audience has come to expect certain things from his movies, and one of those things is not a complicated plot. They expect to be entertained with laughter and amazement. They also expect Jackie Chan to put his life on the line and do stunts that only he can do. They expect to see outtakes where Jackie Chan get badly hurt trying to do outrageously dangerous stunts to please his fans around the world.
A few items worth complimenting in City Hunter are the stunts, the music, and the choreography for the fighting. As mentioned earlier, Jackie Chan is King when it comes to doing his own stunts. There is no actor in Hollywood that is crazy enough to dare to attempt half of the stunts that Jackie Chan has done in this movie alone. The music was surprisingly good. The theme song, "City Hunter," was very catchy. I caught myself humming the tunes of the song after the movie. The choreography for the fighting scenes was by far the best part in the movie. Jackie Chan did a magnificent job of choreographing this movie. Also, it probably easy for him seeing how he is a kung fu expert with awesome fighting skills and agility of a gymnast.
Overall, I give this movie an eight on a one to ten scale because of the simplistic plot and the bad dubbing. Other than that, I highly recommend this movie to everyone. To the Jackie Chan fans I recommend this movie because it is one his better movies. And to everyone who has never seen a Jackie Chan movie, this movie is a great one to begin an obsessive addiction. Some people might say that once you seen one of Jackie Chan’s movie, you’d seen them all, but its more like, once you see one, you can’t help but wanting to see more.
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