Film / City Hunter: The Cupid's Perfume

"This perfume is bullshit!"

— Ryo Saeba

City Hunter: The Cupid's Perfume (Nicky Larson et le Parfum de Cupidon) is a French action comedy and a Live-Action Adaptation of the City Hunter anime and manga directed by and starring Philippe Lacheau. It was released in February 2019. The story is like a classic City Hunter anime episode, and the film is titled Nicky Larson in French after the Protagonist Title of the (more comedic) French dub version of the anime that aired in The '90s^note Ryo Saeba is then named "Nicky Larson", Kaori is named "Laura", Saeko is named "Hélène" and Umibôzu is named "Mammouth". As such, the film is heavy with nostalgia for what French fans call the "Club Dorothée era", Lacheau being a part of that generation himself.^note The Club Dorothée was a TV show that introduced a whole generation of French children to Japanese anime and tokusatsu television series like Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, Saint Seiya, Ranma ½, Sailor Moon, Choudenshi Bioman, and of course City Hunter — albeit with heavy censorship and many a Dub Name Change, inconsistencies and hilarious voices at the time.

A client, Mr. Letellier, hires the City Hunter duo to protect the so-called "Perfume of Cupid". When Ryo doubts the perfume's effect, his client (a man in his 60s) uses it on himself and makes Ryo smell it. The effect is almost instantaneous, Ryo falls in love with his client and gradually loses interest in women. Worse, Umibozu barges in and steals the perfume with the countermeasure in it, but the two chemicals then end up in the hands of an unrelated civilian named Mr. Skippy in the ensuing scuffle. To fulfill his job and return to his normal self, Ryo must then follow Skippy's trail as the latter quickly discovers the potential of the perfume. Hilarity Ensues as well as badassery and drama.

Lacheau has talked about his ideas for a sequel project, which could be a crossover with another famous Tsukasa Hojo creation, Cat's Eye. He also had a hand in importing the contemporary anime film City Hunter: Shinjuku Private Eyes in France.

For the 1993 film starring Jackie Chan, see City Hunter.

Although in its native language the movie uses the names of the bowdlerised French dub of the anime in the late 1980s/early 1990s, this page will use the Japanese names for the sake of clarity.

The movie got a Japanese release in November 2019 under the name City Hunter - The Movie: The Most Aromatic Mission in History.

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City Hunter: The Cupid's Perfume provides examples of:

• Abandoned Warehouse: Ryo is summoned by the Black Hand in an abandoned factory where Kaori is held hostage in exchange for the perfume and which becomes the battlefield of the climax.
• Abhorrent Admirer: Kaori is very unhappy that poor Poncho has fallen victim to the Cupid's perfume and begins to follow her everywhere.
• Abnormal Ammo: In the final fight, Mr. Skippy uses a leaf blower to shoot... live ducklings at mooks. In slo-mo. With a long close-up on the poor flying duckling. It actually somehow manages to work.
• Accidental Misnaming: Mr. Skippy's mother-in-law can't remember her "favorite" son-in-law's name, instead using the name of his wife's ex.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: It seems like Philippe Lacheau watched and read City Hunter completely and took story elements from all over the manga, anime and French dub.
• Adaptation Name Change: Zigzagged trope. The movie is an adaptation of the French version of the City Hunter anime, which already underwent Adaptation Name Change to make the names more familiar to French audience. Thus, in a way it is both faithful to the French dub which the French are familiar with, yet does deviates from the original material. Ryo Saeba is "Nicky Larson", Kaori and Hideyuki Makimura are "Laura" and "Tony Marconi", Umibozu is named "Mammouth" and Saeko Nogami is "Hélène Lamberti".
• Alone in a Crowd: After Ryo, still in love with Mr. Letellier, hears from the man himself that he has some "company", Ryo is heartbroken and sits alone in the corner of several top-models' dressing room. In fact, he even ignores the women in underwear.
• Antiquated Linguistics: Skippy is fond of obsolete expressions which he regularly blurts out. Even his wife finds it pathetic.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Kaori takes insult at Ryo for not even trying to seduce her. Her brother made clear to Ryo that he didn't want him to even try.
• Arrow Cam: Ryo shoots on the wheel of a motorcycle more than a hundred meters away and the camera then follows the path of the bullet from the barrel to the wheel.
• A-Team Firing: Kaori tries to shoot a bad guy standing still but misses him. Justified Trope since Ryo has kept her away from firearm training to prevent her from ever killing someone.
• Attractiveness Discrimination: Skippy regularly abuses the Cupid's perfume to get better client service and secure his path to his idol Jessica Fox. He uses the perfume to seduce an airport clerk to get a flight to Monaco, gets three top models to push his car to the hotel and is implied to get a room at a full hotel thanks to it.
• Awful Wedded Life: Mr. Skippy is quite unhappy in his marriage, between his vulgar harridan of a wife and his disrespectful son. No wonder he jumps on the occasion to have an adulterous tryst with his idol when he gets his hand on the perfume.
• Back-to-Back Badass: Ryo and Kaori against the henchmen of the Black Hand. Surrounded on all sides by bad guys, they watch each other's backs as they shoot, at one point going "Chest-to-Chest Badass" too.
• Badass Longcoat: Ryo, During the final scene.
• Bait-and-Switch Gunshot: After Kaori unfortunately shoots Ryo in the ass, the mook she was aiming at turns his gun toward her, and we see her wince in fright as a gunshot is heard. Then the henchman slowly falls to the ground, revealing Ryo, behind him, who's just shot him the back.
• Batman Gambit: Ryo fakes his death because he expected the Black Hand to reveal themselves if he were to die, too afraid to face him. He actually does slip up in front of the grave and Ryo reveals himself once he does.
• Beautiful All Along: Kaori, of course. She gets mistaken for a guy in her casual men's clothes, but is revealed to be gorgeous in a red dress.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Ryo and Kaori again. They play mean pranks to each other, regularly snark together and so on. However, Kaori is clearly in love with Ryo and Pr. Letellier reveals that if Ryo was immune to the perfume with Kaori, it’s because he was already in love with her.
• Big Bad: The Black Hand, one of Union Teope's executive staff and the one who killed Kaori's brother.
• Big Damn Heroes: After being an enemy for the majority of the movie, Umibozu then comes to the rescue in the factory by disposing of several henchmen threatening an out-of-bullet Ryo.
• Big "NO!": Poncho yells "NO!" in slow motion when the Black Hand boss fires on Kaori.
• A Birthday, Not a Break:
  • Hideyuki was killed on Kaori's birthday.
  • It's also Mr Skippy's birthday when he find the perfume and get assaulted by his mother-in-law.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands:
  • Ryo first blasts the Black Hand boss's gun after he fires on Kaori and hits Mrs. Skippy, but the latter refuses to surrender and throws them a grenade.
  • Ryo later blasts the Black Hand's gun out of his hand, from hundreds of meters away, through a concrete wall and by shooting several times at the same spot to get through it.
• Bloodless Carnage: There's lots of action, and relatively low fatalities but not much actual blood. That guy whose head is blown off should have been much messier.
• Brick Joke:
  • Apparently Ryo underwent therapy for his sex addiction, not helped at all by the therapist having an Embarrassing Slide in his Rorschach blot slideshow, showing him trying out archery in a nudist camp. Later, Ryo tracks down Umibozu, after he grabbed the Cupid's Perfume, into a hospital, where he meets the therapist again... only now he's a patient. With an arrow in his ass.
  • Poncho confessing his love outside the wrong airplane bathroom leads to this kid who almost tattles to his dad, before Poncho KO's him with a food cart. After the plane lands, the PA system announcer calls for the kid's parents to pick him up.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Ryo's antics are really crazy but he's one of the best sweepers, able to take a small army of goons thanks to his guns.
• Butt-Monkey: All of the featured characters are made fun of at their expenses.
  • Umibozu falls in one of Ryo's mean traps. Grab a man's penis when trying to take his gun, is knocked out by Kaori when fighting Ryo after she used a syringe with a general anesthetic on him. Then Ryo puts him on in a bed in line for plastic surgery. Next time we see him, he gets all his "bottom" hair removed by laser surgery. He's not happy about this after.
  • Mr. Mokkori, the mayor of the fictional city where the characters lives. He gets punched in the dick multiple times, gets disfigured by needles. Is defenestrated naked and lands on a bus while unconscious. The next time we see him, he gives an interview with a very ugly and disfigured face.
  • Poncho is usually on the receiving end of jokes and punchlines. Ryo and Kaori try to get rid of him at every possible occasion.
  • One of the Black Hand mooks go through more than a few Amusing Injuries, including being dangled by his underwear during the P.O.V. view fight or thrown out of a car (in slo-mo) and slamming into a billboard. And at the end he's the one to get the bomb belt around his waist, which he doesn't notice until it's too late and he already walked outside the factory. Boom.
• The Cameo: There's an appearance of Frédérique Hoschedé, better known as "Dorothée", as an airport employee. She was the host of the late 1980s/early 1990s show Club Dorothée, which featured the dubbed City Hunter anime on French TV (as "Nicky Larson") and contributed to the familiarization of French audiences with anime in general (albeit with very bizarre, comical or nonsensical French dubs).
• Cannot Spit It Out: It's obvious by the time the credits rolls that Ryo and Kaori love each other. But they never say it out loud.
• Canon Foreigner: Mr. Skippy and Poncho are major characters who aren't in the original series, obviously created so as to star alongside Lacheau again after their previous successful comedy team-ups.
• Celeb Crush: Skippy idolizes a celebrity named Jessica Fox, who is played by and is basically Pamela Anderson. He actually manages to have some good times with her thanks to the perfume.
• Chick Magnet: Skippy becomes one thanks to the Love Potion that is Cupid's perfume.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Ryo is sometimes this and sometimes just a Handsome Lech. The "chivalrous" part is mainly when he's getting serious. He also WON'T let women harm/kill others, his reasoning being he doesn't want their hands to get soiled like his hands did.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Poncho confesses his love to Kaori through a bathroom door, only for the door to open and reveal a very disturbed kid threatening to tell his father what just happened. To escape retribution, Poncho throws a food cart at the kid.
• Comedic Underwear Exposure: During the scrapyard fight, Ryo activates the electromagnet to disarm the bad guys of their guns... and one of them also lose his belt in the process, letting his pants fall down to his knees.
• Comically Missing the Point: Mr. Skippy is ranting on Jessica Fox's phone, which is diffused live through internet, and watched by thousands of people, including his family. He notably mentions that his son isn't their biological child, that they found him on a parking lot at a time he and his wife were thinking about adopting a dog. The son is indignant... that his mother always refused him to have a dog.
• Covers Always Lie: The movie poster shows Kaori with her trademark "100 Tons" hammer, but she never uses it (except in an Imagine Spot). Instead, she swings a sledgehammer at Ryo who warily tries to avoid it.
• Curbstomp Battle: Anytime Ryo fights someone, except Umibozu.
• Declaration of Protection: During the climax, Ryo gives a machine gun to Kaori. Ryo reveals he swore to Makimura that he would protect her.
• Died in Your Arms Tonight: Hideyuki dies in Ryo's arms after being killed by a mysterious man from the window of a car.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: When Ryo arrives at the gala, the orchestra is playing a remix of the Nicky Larson theme from the French dub of the anime — and the singer is Jean-Paul Césari, the original interpret of the song. The chorus would cause someinvoked Fridge Logic within the movie's context since it repeats "Nicky Larson" several times, but these parts are always covered by the dialogue.
• The Ditz: Poncho, whose cognitive abilities are well below average. He thought that putting his hamster in the microwave would merely heat him, doesn't see that a kid on his shoulder will crash on a sign, gets under the wrong car to get crushed beneath the wheels, etc.
• Dub Name Change: As it is also an Homage to the bowdlerized so-bad-it's-good dub of the anime in the late 1980s/early 1990s, which is very well-known in France, the movie uses the French bowdlerized names of the characters: Nicky Larson for Ryo Saeba, Laura Marconi for Kaori Makimura, Tony Marconi for Hideyuki Makimura, Helene Lamberti for Saeko Nogami and Mammouth for Umibozu. This page uses the Japanese names for the sake of clarity.
• Ending Theme: "Get Wild", like in the anime's first season.
• Faking the Dead: Ryo at the end of the movie, to draw out the real Big Bad.
• Fan Disservice:
  • When we get treated to a pole dance... courtesy of Skippy, an out-of-shape middle-aged man in his underwear.
  • Skippy getting hit on by his own mother-in-law for some.
• Fanservice Extra: A lot. Special mention goes to the women working out that Ryo spies on, the "dancers" at the strip club in which he meets Hideyuki during a flashback, and the models at the lingerie fashion show.
• Fate Worse than Death: When Ryo learns he's going to fall in love with a man and stop caring about women, he treats it as such.
• Femme Fatale Spy: The driver who greets Ryo and Kaori at their arrival at the airport, on their way to locate Mr. Skippy. She locks them in the car, leaving them to be crushed in a car compressor.
• Film Noir: The flashback of Makimura's death is done in a very '80s Film Noir style, contrasting with the most modern and colorful rest of the movie.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Ryo describes Umibozu as a Punch-Clock Villain. In the climax, he's talked Umibozu into a Heel–Face Turn by convincing him that they had both been played by the Big Bad.
  • The Black Hand boss has a dog he always plays fetch with. He is then Hoist by His Own Petard when he throws a grenade but the dog gives it back to him all the same.
  • At the beginning of the movie, Mr. Letellier talks about the rumors he heard of Ryo's exploits, including how he supposedly "can shoot six bullets at the exact same spot." In the movie's last climax, Ryo does exactly that to defeat the Big Bad.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Ryo shoots the biker who first steals the perfume, "City Hunter" is written on the bullet.
• Friend on the Force: Saeko has a quick scene early in the movie when Ryo asks her to locate the man who accidentally took the briefcase with the perfume. She reappears at the end when they locate the Black Hand and must arrest him.
• Full-Frontal Assault: Twice from Mr. Mokkori, the mayor, early in the movie. While he is unconscious.
• Gender-Blender Name: Gender-neutral name in this case. The Big Bad presents himself as "Dominique Letellier", the child of the Cupid's Perfume's inventor, to gain the trust of Ryo and Kaori. The real one is actually a woman.
• Gray Rain of Depression: The flashback of Ryo witnessing Hideyuki's murder happens at night with heavy rain emphasizing the gloom.
• Green-Eyed Monster: The trio of top-models Skippy has used the perfume on see Skippy with Jessica Fox. Jealous, they throw a lobster at her and take her out.
• Groin Attack:
  • Kaori hides a crab inside of Ryo's bubble bath. Ryo actually spots the crab and takes it out of the water but forgets to put the crab away from his crotch anyway. Kaori is delighted to hear his screams of pain.
  • In the scrapyard brawl, we have one mook suspended from a crane by his underpants, while another one is headbutted in the nuts.
• Heroic Build: Ryo is very muscled, which goes quite well with his Lantern Jaw of Justice. Funnily, it's revealed that he's sent flex pics to his client Mr. Letellier while he was in love with him.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Ryo has promised to protect Kaori at all cost and the movie show that he's willing to lay down for her. Kaori is strapped to a bomb belt which will go off if she takes it for too long and gets out of the factory she's in. Cornered by henchmen and out of bullets, Ryo takes out Kaori's belt, puts it on after forcing Kaori to safety, and prepares to meet his doom. It is then revealed that Umibozu saved him and he faked his death to trap the final bad guy.
• Hopeless Suitor: Poncho for Kaori. She always refuses his advances, to the point he tries to commit suicide when Kaori flat-out tells him that she's not interested.
• How We Got Here: The movie opens with Ryo and Umibozu fighting in a plastic surgery clinic during surgery. Then the movie turns back a few hours to explain how they got there.
• Idiot Crows:
  • Such a crow is shown painted on a wall around the scrapyard scene, accurate to its original depiction in the manga.
  • The movie actually manages to fit a flying crow behind Ryo and Kaori just as he uses the wind as a lame excuse for looking at a woman's panties.
• Imagine Spot: The signature 100-ton hammer only appears in here, while the real Kaori is shown grabbing a normal sledgehammer, which is clearly too heavy for her to swing in the same manner.
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: Ryo cannot help himself in front of beautiful women. Self-admitted.
• Implacable Man: Umibozu is every bit the behemoth of a man is he in the original material. He shrugs off Ryo's punches, No-Sell a defibrillator and always comes back to hunt down Ryo and get the perfume.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: Ryo, full stop. He casually shoots small and faraway targets with utmost precision with his Hand Cannon of a magnum. For instance, he hits a moving motorbike at more than 100 meters, opens a fire hydrant's valve from a moving car with casual ease and finally dodges and shoots back a fast-moving gas cylinder launched towards him.
• Improbable Weapon User: Mr. Skippy uses an industrial vacuum cleaner in reverse to shoot live ducklings at the tattooed woman, forcing her back and making her fall to her demise.
• Innocent Bystander: Both Poncho and Mr. Skippy.
  • Poncho is a victim of the perfume when Ryo attempts to test it on Kaori. Kaori is then given the task to make one man fall in love with her. Said man ends up being Poncho.
  • Mr. Skippy ends up taking the perfume's briefcase, mistaking it for his own, kickstarting the plot of the movie.
• It's Personal: The Black Hand killed Kaori's brother; it can't get much more personal than that.
• Knight of Cerebus: The movie turns more serious once Ryo and Kaori find Hideyuki's watch on one of the bad guys, the proof they're dealing with Union Teope and Hideyuki's killer is among them.
• Lampshade Hanging: The cameo from Vincent Ropion, the original French voice of Ryo in Nicky Larson, is a journalist named Jean-Michel Lavoix ("the voice").
• Laser-Guided Karma: At the end of the movie, the Black Hand is unmasked and is thrown in jail. Then Ryo and Kaori use the last remnant of the perfume encased in a small glass ball and shoot him with it. Everyone around him falls in love with him, including two burly inmates, a prison guard and a dog. The Black Hand can only mutter "Oh crap, OH SHIT!"
• Lie Detector: The gala features a special attraction to entertain the guests: a booth containing a lie-detector machine manned by a "fashion police detective". Kaori isn't enthused by the prospect, but is forced to hide inside to not get caught by guards. There's no cables involved, the subjects just put their hand on a glass pane which detect their vitals, and the whole booth glow red when they lie. Questioned about her love life, Kaori's responses hint she's in denial about her feelings for Ryo.
• Lingerie Scene:
  • Plenty at the gala with gorgeous models, since it's sponsored by a lingerie brand. Ryo even wanders into their dressing room, but he's too affected by Cupid's perfume at this point to care about the scantily clad women.
  • Kaori too ends up in her underwear after a Stripping Snag from an elevator, and is mistaken for one of the lingerie models by guests, to her acute embarrassment.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Ryo, who else? At best, he's misusing his sniper rifle to look at women in a gym or invites his best friend to a hostess club. At worst, he solicits sex from a bride (during her wedding), a grieving widow (during the funeral), or a nun (during her prayer). Nonetheless, he's an honorable guy who cares for Kaori.
• Love Epiphany: What Kaori lives at the party (first a session of lie detector, then the Moment of Silence described below), makes her realize (or at least, stop denying) her feelings for Ryo.
• Love Potion: The Cupid's perfume. If sprayed on someone, anyone who smells it will fall in love with the user not long after; the attraction is near instantaneous and will stick if the antidote is not applied in the following 48 hours. Moreover, one can spot if someone is under the effects of the Cupid's perfume by their reddish eyes. Finally it's revealed that the perfume doesn't work for someone who's already in love with the user, as Kaori happily learns.
• Love Triangle: Kaori and Ryo are already attracted to each other but the Cupid's perfume makes Ryo fall in love with another guy and a random cleaner named Poncho also falls in love with Kaori.
• Marshmallow Hell: Mr. Skippy's mother-in-law, after falling in love with him thanks to the perfume. She removes her top and stuff his head in her breasts.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Poncho confesses his love to Kaori through a closed door, behind which was in fact a very disturbed kid who then runs to his father to tell on Poncho.
• Moment of Silence: At the party, Ryo and Kaori dance on a tango to escape suspicion from Union Teope's goons. While the music is still here, every other sound (including Ryo's voice as he tells Kaori about the mooks) fades to nothingness. It symbolizes how Kaori is lost in her thoughts at the moment — especially her Love Epiphany.
• Murphy's Bed: When Mr. Skippy's mother-in-law gets all amorous toward him because of the perfume, he finally pushes the grabby woman away and she falls on the fold-down bed, which immediately retracts in the wall, her feet still sticking out.
• Mythology Gag: Ryo lifts Kaori's skirt to reveal a thigh-level holster, and pulls it out and starts blasting. He had infamously done the same thing in the anime (although with Saeko instead), as seen here.
• My Sister Is Off-Limits:
  • One of the reasons Ryo won't try anything with Kaori. Hideyuki was dead set against that.
  • Also, one of the henchmen of the Big Bad, under the influence of a Truth Serum, infuriates a co-worker when he reveals that he dates (or rather considers as a one-night stand) the sister of this other henchman.
• Mysterious Backer: Umibozu's unknown client, who is also seeking after Cupid's perfume. It is revealed that the backer is actually the daughter of the perfume's inventor, who has had the formula stolen. Ironically, the backer would have been a typical pretty client of Ryo's in normal circumstances.
• Naked People Are Funny: Ryo's psychologist unwittingly reveals that he's a naturist, showing off by mistake a photo of him butt naked.
• Never Trust a Trailer: The infamous trailers undersell the City Hunter license and focus a lot more on the Poncho and Mr. Skippy characters, obviously aiming for the mainstream French audience and more playing on the success of the director/actors's previous comedy films.
• No-Sell: At the very end of the movie, Kaori uses the perfume to have Ryo fall in love with her. At first glance, it doesn't work on him, his behavior doesn't change and he doesn't get all lovey-dovey at all. It's implied it's because he already loves Kaori, so the perfume doesn't have any effect whatsoever.
• Not-So-Small Role: Famous French actor Didier Bourdon plays a fairly minor character, acting as a client and gag character for Ryo. It's actually revealed that he's the last bad guy Ryo must take out.
• The Oner: The P.O.V. Cam scene, including Ryo's interrogation by the bad guys, then him managing to free himself and fight the henchmen, is at first a fairly long unique shot — for an extremely complex scene involving lots of fighting, special effects (the revolvers being caught by the scrapyard electromagnet) and concluding with a car crash. There is one cut to Kaori, before returning to the P.O.V. Cam again to finish the fight.
• Only a Flesh Wound:
  • Ryo being Shot in the Ass by Kaori is treated entirely comedically, and only as a minor annoyance. He later says that he was lucky that she only grazed him.
  • Mr. Skippy is hit in the shoulder with a bullet that was destined to Kaori. Afterward, he's only seen wincing in pain a bit and still go on unhindered. That doesn't even spare him from suffering more Amusing Injuries.
• The Peeping Tom:
  • Ryo uses his sniper rifle's scope to spy on sexy neighboring ladies.
  • The sledgehammer and other tools left in the bathroom? Ryo just bored a peephole in the wall to a hot neighbor.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: After she's kidnapped by the bad guys, Kaori wears an explosive belt that will explode if she tries to remove it or exit the facility. As they try to exit anyway, Ryo removes the belt by force and pushes Kaori out of the facility anyway, closing the door shut. Kaori is left as a broken sobbing mess as Ryo emotionessly stays behind. Poncho and Mr. Skippy takes her away as the facility explodes.
• Porn Stash: Ryo has put various porn and erotic photo magazines in a closet. He initially denies having a "problem with women", until Kaori opens the closet, causing the (poorly stowed) magazines to fall on the ground.
• Poster Patchup: Ryo hangs a painting titled "Le Chevalier du Zodiac" in their bathroom to hide to Kaori the fact that he pierced a hole in the wall to peep on a next-door woman showering.
• P.O.V. Cam: The movie takes Ryo's point of view when he's captured by a gang, eventually frees himself and fights the henchmen barehanded. The sequence finishes with Ryo grabbing a gun and stopping a fleeing car.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: In part as a nod to the French dub of the anime localizing everything down to the setting of the original version of the anime, and because the budget wouldn't allow it, the movie is entirely set in France and not in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
• Precision Crash: When Ryo and Kaori are locked in a car that's lifted by electromagnet, with the intention of dropping them into a car crusher, Ryo shoots the guy working the controls before they're over it — but dropping our heroes in a car on solid ground isn't much of an improvement.
• Race Lift: Ryo, Kaori, Saeko and Hideyuki, originally Asian-Japanese, are depicted by actors of European descent — alongside their localized Western names. Umibozu, also originally Asian-Japanese, is depicted by a North African actor.
• Remake Cameo: There are cameos of Jean-Paul Césari (the singer of the French dub's opening) as the gala singer, and Vincent Ropion (Ryo's French voice) as a TV journalist.
• The Reveal: Ryo's client, Mr. Letellier, is actually the Black Hand, murderer of Kaori's brother. He stole the perfume from the real owner of the perfume, the real daughter of Professor Letellier. It turns out Miss Letellier is actually Umibozu's client. Hating being manipulated, Ryo plans the downfall of his own treacherous client when he realizes he has been manipulated all along.
• R-Rated Opening: There's male nudity within the first ten minutes. Despite this, the film actually got an all-ages rating in its home country.
• Running Gag: The duck and duckling family following Mr. Skippy everywhere because of Cupid's perfume.
  Mr. Skippy: Please stop following me!
• Sadistic Choice: By the time Ryo finally gets the countermeasure to return to his normal women-loving self, he's so in love with Mr. Letellier due to the perfume's effect that he's unsure if he's going to use it at all. Mr. Skippy takes the decision for him and uses it on him anyway.
• Satchel Switcheroo: The reason the Cupid's perfume ends up in the hands of Mr. Skippy. When Ryo makes Umibozu's bike crash into Mr. Skippy, who has a similar-looking suitcase as the one with the perfume, Umibozu quickly takes a suitcase without looking inside first and Ryo then gives chase, allowing Skippy to have a whole night to understand the power of the perfume and fly to Monaco to meet his Celeb Crush.
• Scary Black Man: Umibozu, for good reasons. Lacheau told the actor to not react to anything, like The Terminator.
• Shot in the Ass:
  • In the clinic, Ryo stumbles upon his psychologist, who has an arrow sticking from his lower back, from what he describes as an unfortunate accident. Which also doubles as a Brick Joke, as the psychologist was accidentally outed earlier in the movie with a photo of him and his friends doing nude archery.
  • During the first confrontation with the villains, Kaori picks a gun and shoots to save Ryo from a big mook, only to hit Ryo in the ass, to his great annoyance.
• Shoot Him, He Has a Wallet!: When Skippy walks toward Jessica Fox with a hand in his jacket, the bodyguards try to stop him. He's so entranced by the star, however, he doesn't even acknowledge that they are beating him up (in slo-mo). They find out afterward that he was just pulling out his cell phone to ask for a selfie.
• Shout-Out: Plenty of them, check out the subpage.
• Shown Their Work: The film has an almost perfect, incredible respect to the original manga and anime, dubbed or not. The attention to details, scenes taken right from the manga and the overall personality of the characters is spot on. Philippe Lacheau even had a meeting with the original author Tsukasa Hojo with pages from the manga to illustrate his story and what he wants to adapt in the movie. Tsukasa Hojo noted that he received multiple propositions for a City Hunter movie but refused them all until then (except the Jacky Chan movie) because they were mostly action movies or Die Hard clones and that's not really what the story is about.
• Strapped to a Bomb: After being kidnapped by the villains and brought to the abandoned factory, Kaori is strapped to a bomb belt that react to her pulse, and thus would explode if they try to remove it or if she leaves the perimeter. (Theoretically, it also means it would go off if she's killed, but that doesn't stop the bad guys from trying to gun her down too during the big shoot-out.) The bomb forces Ryo into a (seeming) Heroic Sacrifice to save Kaori.
• Stripping Snag: At the gala, the tip of Kaori's dress gets caught in an elevator door as it is going up. She avoid getting stripped at first by stubbornly clinging to her dress, which results in her being lifted from the floor. Then Poncho tries to help her, but the elevator is stuck and he has to go up one floor by the stairs to make it move down. Of course, he mucks it up by going one floor too low, and this time Kaori's dress is ripped off her body, leaving her in underwear and garter belts in the hallway.
• Superhero Movie Villains Die: Manga movie actually, but it's zigzagged when the Man Behind the Man bites it in a particularly graphic manner, but Black Hand himself is eventually brought in alive.
• Taking the Bullet: Parodied. It seems like Poncho is going to throw himself in front of Kaori to save her from a bullet, but instead he pushes Mr. Skippy in the way, who takes the bullet in the shoulder.
• Tattooed Crook:
  • The Black Hand himself, recognizable thanks to the tattoos on his hand mimicking naked bones. Kaori discovers that Mr. Letellier is actually the Black Hand under a false identity when she handshakes him and the make-up is erased.
  • The Dragon to the Black Hand subboss is a heavily tattooed lady.
• Television Geography: In order to go from the Nice airport to Monaco, they drive along Antibes which is in the opposite direction.
• Theme Music Power-Up: After Ryo free himself from the kidnappers during The Oner, "FOOTSTEPS" play and he kicks all their asses.
• Thinly-Veiled Dub Country Change: The movie's crew didn't have the money to film the movie in Japan and it would lead to strange things — a movie full of French-speaking French living in Japan. So the movie was shot in France but the city in which the characters lives is made to look like Tokyo via careful selection of the sets. But the last part of the movie references southern France. So it does happen in France but doesn't look like Paris at all.
• Treacherous Quest Giver: Mr. Letellier, Ryo's client is actually the real bag guy and planned to get Ryo killed by accepting the mission.
• Troubled Backstory Flashback: While Ryo and Kaori wait for their client, they remember the tragic death of Makimura, Ryo's best friend and Kaori's brother.
• Truth Serums:
  • Half into the movie, Ryo is injected with a very effective truth serum. He always answer truthfully to any question without lying. Hilarity Ensues
    Guards: Who's there?
    Ryo: It's Ryo and Kaori.
    [Kaori facepalms]
    Guards: What are you doing here?
    Kaori: Looking for the toilets, we're lost.
    Ryo: Actually, we're trying to break into the facility.
  • After Ryo kicks the truth serum's syringe at one of the bad guys, he too can't tell a lie to save his life. He accidentally reveals that he's a mole for the cops and that he was having sex with his colleague's sister — at which point they start fighting each other, allowing Ryo to escape and kick their asses.
• Tsundere: Kaori, is she ever. She regularly gets angry at Ryo's antics, but is undeniably in love with him.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The second act of the movie is split between the subplot of Mr. Skippy who goes to Monaco to seduce his favorite star and the storyline focusing on Ryo and Kaori following his trail.
• Violence Discretion Shot: Ryo's first move when breaking into the Big Bad's stronghold is to shoot out the wall lights and take out two guards in the darkness. For some reason this is the only time they try this.
• Visual Pun: As well as a Shout-Out. Ryo has put a painting in his bathroom, one that shows a "Chevalier du Zodiac" (in English, a knight on an inflatable dinghy). It's a visual pun in reference to Les Chevaliers du Zodiaque, the invokedFrench title of Saint Seiya when it was first broadcast in France in the Club Dorothée show, which the movie homages here and there.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: We never learn if the one Mook who accidentally outed himself as The Mole managed to flee, or was killed, or anything. Even the guy who got flung around on the crane came back.
• You Have 48 Hours: The time it takes for the Cupid's Perfume effect to become permanent.
• You Killed My Father: A cruel Bait-and-Switch take on the trope when Kaori finds the man who took her brother's watch on the night of his death - then fails to kill him anyway. And it wasn't even him who did it, it was Black Hand. She gets another shot to expose him instead, at Ryo's fake funeral.

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