Tsukasa Hojo is a manga legend, having created huge hits such as City Hunter, Angel Heart, Cat's Eye and Family Compo, but the cinema never really did justice to his works: a spoof City Hunter adaptation with Jackie Chan, an unauthorized adaptation of City Hunter (Mr. Mumble), and a lame Cat's Eye movie where our three gorgeous cat burglar sisters are confronted by witches and a strange magic cult (sic).
Well, maybe this new City Hunter series could well be the first adaptation to bring justice to Hojo's greatest work, despite some major changes in the story.
Here, Ryo Saeba is called Lee Yoon-Sung and is more like a secret agent than a professional killer running a private detective agency as a cover and Kaori Makimura, called Kim Na-Na, is a young woman with a tragic past who now works as a bodyguard for the president of South Korea.
Still, the more I see about this new series, the more I am led to think that, despite some important changes, the show could have succeeded to capture the spirit of the original manga and transposed it into his own universe (set in the modern Seoul rather than the 80's Tokyo).
Lee Yoon-Sung is interpreted by famous korean star Lee Min-Ho (so popular in fact that the first thing we have ever saw about the show are the hundreds of fans waiting for him at the exit of the airport), while Kim Na-Na is played by the beautiful Park Min-Young.
And this is mostly this new City Hunter duo who illustrates itself with these new pics from the shooting.
Lee Min-Ho (Lee Yoon-Sung / Ryo Saeba):
Park Min-Young (Kim Na-Na / Kaori Makimura):
Lee Jun-Hyuk (Prosecutor Kim Young-Joo):
I have to say I wasn't really convinced the first time I heard about Lee Min-Ho playing the City Hunter. I thought he was too young to portray Ryo Saeba (he's only 23) and it is a very hard role to play, often switching between the charismatic private detective / bodyguard / professional killer and the hilarious sexual pervert personas at the most unexpected moment.
It seems like I was wrong: he seems to have the charisma and the sex-appeal needed, as well as the enthusiasm of the character and even some kind of craziness. I can definitely see the City Hunter in him with those pics, like if he really came out of the manga's pages.
As for Park Min-Young's Kim Na-Na, she seems quite different from the original Kaori. I suppose she still has some of her tomboy's traits because, well, she works as a bodyguard, but she seems more feminine than the original Kaori in her looks (hard to mistake her for a man here, despite what Ryo would say).
The City Hunter series is set to be broadcasted in the south-korean channel SBS from May, 25th.