‘Demon City’ Sneak Peek Teases Netflix’s Action-Packed Manga Adaptation

February 17, 20253 Mins Read

At the beginning of the month, Netflix revealed that Demon City‘s premiere was closer than ever. Since its debut is just around the corner, the streamer decided to tease the live-action adaptation of the manga series with a sneak peek that reveals that the movie will go hard on the John Wick style of fighting. The action film follows a man who is accused of killing his wife and child. Twelve years later, he is released from prison and is out for revenge. Demon City is set to premiere on February 27.

The sneak peek of Demon City teases a fight scene that keeps escalating in tension. Featuring everything from trash and tractors to knives and machine guns, the scene reveals that protagonist Shūhei Sakata (Toma Ikuta) will have to get creative with how he fights his enemies and be extremely adaptive to the environment in every fight. He’s also extremely skilled at killing: in the space of a minute, we see Shūhei take out almost a dozen thugs in several different ways.

The title Demon City alludes to the fact that Shūhei has so many years of anger built up inside him that he basically turns into a violent demon in his search for revenge and the ones who actually killed his family. The original manga series, which ran from 2020 to 2024, was wildly popular and also pretty violent – so we’re yet to know if the movie will be as violent as the original story or if Netflix decided to tone it down to appeal to wider audiences. The trailer suggests that it will be violent at some level, though. What we do know for sure is that the movie will retain some of the manga’s landmark elements, such as the masked criminals that control the underworld of the city of Shinjo.

Who Is on the Team Behind ‘Demon City’?

Demon City is directed and written by Seiji Tanaka, who previously helmed the dark comedy Melancholic. The cast also features Masahiro Higashide (Death Note: Light Up the New World), Miou Tanaka (Godzilla Minus One), Ami Toma (Ooku), Taro Suruga (Hard Days), Mai Kiryu (September 1923), Naoto Takenaka (Tokyo biyori), Takuma Otoo (Howl’s Moving Castle), Masanobu Takashima (Godzilla vs. Biollante) and Matsuya Onoe (Don’t Call it Mystery).

The original story was created by Masamichi Kawabe and is titled Oni Goroshi. The music of the Demon City live-action movie is handled by Tomoyasu Hotei, a legendary guitarist who has collaborated on the soundtracks of movies like Kill Bill and TV shows like Suicide Squad Isekai and Lupin the 3rd.