Picture: Netflix
From Digital Frontier & Amuse Inc., Demon City is the latest live-action Manga adaptation for Netflix after previous efforts like 2017’s Death Note & the popular current series Alice in Borderland (Season 3 announced for September 2025).
Based on the manga “Oni Goroshi” by Masamichi Kawabe, the film centers on Shuhei Sakata (Toma Ikuta), a hitman hired to take out the Yakuza gang known as the Kono-gumi as his last job before ending his career. However, after he dispatches the Kono-gumi as requested, the mysterious organization who hired him known as Kimen-gumi, donning demon-faced masks, arrives at his home. Failing to take them out, Sakata can only watch as his family is gunned down right before he takes a bullet himself.
Miraculously, Sakata survives only to see himself sent to a prison hospital as police saw the scene at his home as a murder-suicide attempt. After being in a coma for several years, he awakens in a near-vegetative state and is soon released. However, almost immediately, Sakata finds himself back in the hospital and fighting for his life; this time with a corrupt cop & his superior in a demon mask seeking to finish the job they started over a decade ago.
In an even MORE miraculous fashion, our hitman’s body responds to the adrenaline of almost being killed, snapping out of the vegetative state just enough to stave off his attackers. At full strength and finally free, Sakata focuses his energy on one simple thing: Revenge.
Written and directed by Seiji Tanaka (Melancholic), Demon City has all the ingredients to create a high-octane, gun-fu crime thriller—a one-man army revenge plot with a skilled assassin, demon-masked villains, and a rock guitar-laden soundtrack created by Tomoyasu Hotei (Kill Bill Vol 1, Samurai Fiction)—but mediocre execution, poor writing, jagged pacing, and unremarkable characters make this one a largely forgettable effort.
As a connoisseur of gun-fu crime films and stories based on comic books (or in this case a Manga), I have a high tolerance for simple, contrived plot lines with constantly monologuing villains and weak expository dialogue. However, outside of its largely well-choreographed fight sequences by Takashi Tanimoto (City Hunter, Alice in Borderland), Demon City hardly feels like it’s trying. The pulse between fights slows to a crawl sapping all momentum. The central villain is barely present with a very bland vision for his empire and lacking depth. Our protagonist rarely speaks and the only things we know about him are that he was a hired gun that had no problem taking a job from this new gang & the new gang killed his family while trying to frame him for their deaths. These things add up to a movie that will look fun in Internet clips, but will disappoint anyone looking for anything further.
Picture: Netflix
Much like Sakata’s inexplicable return to form, Demon City will leave you shrugging and struggling to find meaning in anything that isn’t a proper beatdown. Some action fans won’t seem to mind (and that’s fine), but I was hoping for SOMETHING to connect me from brawl to brawl.
Watch Demon City If You Liked
- City Hunter
- Carter
- Oldboy
- The Night Comes For Us
MVP of Demon City
Music Composer Tomoyasu Hotei
If you’re an American movie fan, you may think you don’t know the name, but you absolutely know his work. Go look up “Battle Without Honor or Humanity”. I’ll wait …
SEE?! Kill Bill Vol 1, Transformers, Team America: World Police, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. They’ve all benefited from the acclaimed guitar work and rock star compositions from one of the most notable Japanese musicians of the last 4 decades.
With Demon City, Hotei gives the film a unique jolt with his almost throwback 80s guitar sound and heavy rock drum backbeats cut to the solid fight choreography that together make the film watchable.
When the fists are flying, Demon City can be a gun-fu fan’s delight, filled with enough intense action to satisfy. But when they’re not, it’s a slog. Poorly written dialogue & woefully forgettable characters drag down something with potential.
