Few live action comedies mimic the lurid comic book style of Japanese manga as accurately or amusingly as “City Hunter,” a gonzo beat-em-up/shoot-em-up knife-fight riot based on the comic by Tsukasa Hôjô.

“Kasane” director Yûichi Satô, action choreographer Takashi Tanimoto and a legion of effects animators, “bullet time” masters and the garish neon and strobe-lit city of Tokyo — with its strip clubs, drag clubs and endless cosplaying conventions — make this candy-colored extravaganza pop off the screen.

And star Ryohei Suzuki (of “Egoist”) carries it on its merry, dumb way with the loopy, leering womanizing smirk and action hero swagger the title role requires.

Ryo is a swashbuckling detective, a do-gooder who hunts down missing persons based on requests scrawled on subway chalkboards. He is quick with his fists, quicker with his feet and a real dead-eye private eye when it comes to gunplay — shooting to wound or disable, often from impossible angles (backwards), never ever missing, no matter what revolver or semi-automatic he’s emptying.

He’s also a bit “pervy,” into porn and pretty women, sometimes in that order. This latest “Find my sister” request came from a woman he only knows as “Miss Sweater Melons.”

Luckily, he’s got ex-cop (Masanobu Andô) as a partner to keep him on task and maybe tamp down the stalker/ogler tendencies. When he loses that partner to the citywide outbreak of drugged-up people “losing all control” and flipping out, violently, Ryo is saddled with that partner’s naive sister, Kaori (Misato Morita).

They must track down the subject of Miss Sweater Melons’ search, a wild child cosplayer named Kurumi ( Asuka Hanamura), get to the bottom of this new drug’s purveyors, keep the police detective Saeko (Fumino Kimura) at bay and maybe get a little help from the Old Man of the Underworld (Isao Hashizume).

Legions of henchmen and a masked Brown Bear monster meant to be this story’s “Bane” must be fought and bested if they’re to save the day.

Yes, the plot is strictly formulaic, from the hero’s trench coat to his partner’s eyeglasses to the “car with character” Ryo drives — a ’70s vintage Mini Cooper.

But Suzuki makes a grandly is entertaining tour guide to “the world I live in” for Kaori and by extension, the viewer. Ryo is recognizable on the streets, catnip to the ladies and popular at a local drag club. He’s fit and cut and not shy about taking the stage as a stripper if it’ll get him into the underworld night club’s black-room casino.

And yes, he’s “kind of pervy.” It’s as obvious as his outgoing message on voice mail.

“I’m currently nursing a boner and can’t get to the phone…”

“City Hunter” never overcomes the cliched story or the cartoonish nature of the violence. But we can ignore that because the filmmakers get the pro forma details right. Montages of city CCTV cameras capturing drugged folks “losing all control” (in Japanese, or dubbed), over-the-top brawls, high-stakes one-on-one fights, garishly decorated discos, and a visit to a cosplay convention that embraces the fun and the creepy nature of it all (Japanese men’s obsession with panties, and photographing pixies wearing them).

And Suzuki makes the silly story fun to follow between fights with a giggling, juvenile charisma that is hard to resist.

The film becomes a manga that doesn’t transcend the “comic book” nature of it all. It wallows in it, and is all the more fun for it.

Rating: TV-MA, gunplay, bloody violence, nudity

Cast: Ryohei Suzuki, Misato Morita, Asuka Hanamura, Masanobu Andô, Fumino Kimura and Isao Hashizume

Credits: Directed by Yûichi Satô, scripted by Tatsuro Mishima, based on the manga (comic book) by Tsukasa Hôjô. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:44