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Joe (originally Ryo) Saeba is a bodyguard-for-hire who can pick off an enemy from any distance, dodge bullets, and perform heroic athletic feats--when he's not propositioning every female in the vicinity. (A blow from one of the sledgehammers wielded by his partner Kaori brings him back into line.) This 90-minute stand-alone film from 1996 has him protecting the long-lost daughter of a Latin American politician. It's often difficult to tell where the over-the-top plot involving drug smugglers, paid assassins, a lost diamond mine, and shifting political loyalties leaves off, and the slapstick humor begins. Joe makes Captain Tyler look bright and Happosai in Ranma seem downright genteel, but manga artist Tsukasa Hojo's character has proved extraordinarily durable: City Hunter has been revived in animation periodically since the TV series debuted in 1987, and Jackie Chan played Joe in a 1993 live-action film. Rated 15 Up: Violence, nudity, sexual humor. --Charles Solomon
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