Nicky Larson and Cupid's Perfume

Philippe Lacheau's Nicky Larson and Cupid's Perfume has a few metatextual layers to it that makes its creation a little more complicated than a simple adaptation of Tsukasa Hojo's City Hunter manga. Lacheau, the film's co-writer (with Julien Arruti and Pierre Lacheau), director and star is refashioning a specific exposure to an imported property: his childhood glimpse of a re-edited, French language dubbed version of Sunrise's 80s animated series, then rechristened as Nicky Larson. The show ran on French television as part of Club Dorothée, a magazine show that combined variety show skits and music videos with localised anime, such as Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star, Saint Seiya, and, of course, City Hunter. From a UK perspective, presumably the equivalent would be if someone like Dev Patel was creatively fixated on Channel 4's Late License screenings of the Manga Video library and had cashed in all of his box office goodwill to get a live-action Cyber City Oedo 808 project going. 

That this somewhat applicable situation seems completely impossible is really only further evidence that the British film industry can trend subordinate, mainly offering up studio space or technical proficiency for American money rather than the strange, cultural feedback loops enjoyed by our French cousins. Anyway, Lacheau's film, although spotted with surprisingly fluid acts of violence, foregrounds the more puerile elements of its source material. Women (of all ages) are to be appraised or leered at but, crucially, never actually touched. It's not just Nicky who fails to act on his horndog desires either. Upon meeting the pin-up model of his dreams, played by Pamela Anderson, Julien Arruti's Gilbert - a balding middle-aged man in possession of an eau de toilette that ensnares anyone who sniffs it - has no idea what to do, quickly abandoning himself to whatever handcuffed sex games his beloved has in mind. So, as well as bringing his beloved cartoon serial to the big screen, Lacheau has also preserved the distance between overstimulated, adolescent pangs and the three-dimensional women who exist beyond their coveted image.