Catwoman: Hunted is the newest, DC/WB anime feature, written by Greg Weisman/directed by Shinshuke Terasawa, with evident Guy Ritchie inspiration and Yutaka Yama's jazzy score groovin' throughout.
It's an ideal vehicle for the modern, goggled-version of Selina Kyle, in a solo exploit that would have worked as well for live action. With this said, Hunted (though as hip as any current installment could be) is more streamlined and traditional than the Halle Berry (as Patience Phillips) effort, in that it's stripped of all re-imagined emanation and/or ground-floor rebooting, opting to commence in the legendary heart of things.
For this particular tale, a Suicide Squad-sort set-up unfolds, with Kyle enlisted by Interpol on a mission to tease and mislead a powerful syndicate called Leviathan. If she succeeds, her global warrants disappear, but as Kyle's luck would have it, conniving characters enter to foil her audacious undertaking, including the regal Lady Minerva; the saucy La Dama; the brutal Black Mask; the vampiric Nosferata; the hulking Solomon Grundy; the ferocious Cheetah; and that swift-as-heck grinner, Cheshire.
Batwoman/Kate Kane also appears as Kyle's friendly foe. Kane is, in truth, a Batman understudy, rendered in a sexy, snug outfit. It's really hard to peel one's eyes from her, but even so, the redheaded crusader isn't so all-consuming as to marginalize our eponymous, emerald thief, who at one point even disguises herself as an old-school Batwoman for a huge, DC-character masquerade event. (FYI: The duo's bathroom tryst is one for the steamy books.)
At any rate, though the guest stars are plentiful, Catwoman remains the tale's focus. In fact, viewers are fated to relish Kyle's contagious, good-girl/bad-girl duality and every one of her heartthrobbing moves. (Though she handles a whip, it's only there for obligatory means, leaving Kyle's kicks, somersaults and dandy derriere to command center stage. Sorry, but for me the whip isn't essential to Kyle's attire. When it comes to comic-book lore, I say keep the LaRue-ing to Marvel's multiple Whiplashes.)
Hunted is also pleasing for its dissonant, though principled heart. Where a venue like Suicide Squad takes a consistent, Superfly slant to blur its moral perspectives, Hunted toys with the ambivalence only on an intermittent, melodramatic basis (rather like a cat returning to play with a ball of yarn). This places Kyle in a virtuous and respectable spot in most of the story's ka-powing sequences. (Having Kyle go rogue in a supporting capacity is acceptable, but for an insertion like Hunted, it's important she's more than a garish murderess.)
As one can infer, Hunted is worth the pursuit, fitting Catwoman to a tee, as it buffers the character's further revitalization via Zoe Kravitz in Matt Reeves' The Batman, set to dazzle audiences next month. Yep, a grand, new age of Catwoman is upon us. Me-ow!
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