“Three lively panthers, who in a flash, know how to leap without a sound…” The people in their thirties and forties who spent afternoons in front of televisions at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the following decade knew the song. These words are those of the French theme song of Signé Cat’s Eyesthe animated series adapted from the eponymous manga by Tsukasa Hôjô. Nostalgic fans should therefore hum them with pleasure while discovering the credits, performed by Anne Sila, from Cat’s Eyesthe series made in France, freely inspired by the work of the mangaka and whose first episodes will be broadcast on Monday November 11 from 9:10 p.m. on TF1.
Purists will undoubtedly watch the adventures of Tamara, Sylia and Alexia with a critical eye, on the lookout for missteps. Camille Lou, Constance Labbé and Claire Romain, the actresses embodying the trio of sisters emblematic for an entire generation, say they feel a certain pressure.
First positive feedback
The presentation of the first episodes, in preview, at the La Rochelle Fiction Festival (Charente-Maritime), in September, was a first temperature measurement. “We were super stressed. Before the screening, I was unable to eat anything. We couldn't wait for the public to see the result. When we're on set, we don't necessarily have perspective on what we're doing. The first feedback was very positive, it’s nice,” Claire Romain tells 20 Minutes.
The plot takes place in Paris, in 2023. Tamara finds her sisters whom she has not seen for several years. Together, they will try to get their hands on a work that belonged to their father. It disappeared ten years earlier in the fire of its art gallery but is preparing to reappear in an exhibition at the Eiffel Tower. Recovering it obviously involves moving forward masked and finding yourself in acrobatic and perilous situations…
Une « Origin story »
Tsukasa Hôjô saw the first two episodes. “He really liked it,” assures Camille Lou who feels “protected” by this validation. The mangaka was also involved throughout the project, going so far as to go to the set. Producer Mehdi Sabbar explains in the press kit that five years passed between the first artistic validation of the project by the Japanese artist and the final signing of the contract allowing the concrete start of the series. It was necessary to establish a relationship of trust and “show a clear credential,” insists Benjamin Dupont-Jubien, also a producer.
Tsukasa Hôjô, for his part, says he was “seduced” by “the idea of seeing what the French would do with it”. Also quoted in the press kit, he specifies that he imposed certain “essential” rules. “For example, Cat's Eyes don't kill. They are also very careful about the works of art they steal […]. Tam, Sylia and Alexia are not thieves at heart, they are ordinary young women. »
Which puts this Cat’s Eyes Parisian sheltered from certain criticisms, it is also the fact that it is a origin storya prequel taking place before the plots imagined by the Japanese. “It’s a story that doesn’t exist in the manga. We therefore learn how these three women ended up becoming burglars,” underlines Claire Romain. In the argument provided to the press, the mangaka claims to find “the series very successful because it manages to offer a new look at this story”.
“A real expectation at the international level”
The result is reminiscent, in certain aspects, of the series Lupin from Netflix. Particularly by the way in which she appropriates the references of a work and transposes them into a contemporary and Parisian setting. The “city of lights” and its emblematic places are also a character in their own right. The plot takes the protagonists from the Eiffel Tower to the Hôtel de la Monnaie via the Palace of Versailles. An element which proves to be an asset in ensuring sales of the series around the world. Cat’s Eyes has already been acquired by several countries. “There is a real expectation at the international level. I was filming in Italy and when I said I'd been cast in Cat's Eyes, people were like, “Ah! Cat's eye “, recalls Claire Romain, taking on an enthusiastic transalpine intonation.
Constance Labbé admits to being “a little afraid” of “the scale of this project”. “It's great if it opens up opportunities for us, but it comes with other questions, like notoriety, which can stress me out or overwhelm me a little,” she admits. Like her acolytes, however, she did not spare herself during the physical preparation phase which preceded filming. Between this moment and the final clap, they were involved in their role for seven months for eight 52-minute episodes. Parkour, aikido, climbing… depending on their characters, the sporting initiation was particularly intense.
“The director didn’t want to shoot on a green screen”
“One of the specificities of the series is that the director, Alexandre Laurent [qui a également réalisé Le Bazar de la Charité et Les Combattantes pour TF1] did not want to shoot on a green screen, Camille Lou informs us. There was a day of green screen for the Eiffel Tower scenes, but more because shots were missing than to reenact the stunts. »
When 20 Minutes asks each of the actresses to summarize this first season in one word, the proposals are not long in coming. “Intense”, “dantesque” and “eclectic” come to them spontaneously. This fits with the air that many people over 20 know about this “fabulous trio”: “In a helicopter, on land or in water, in defiance of all dangers”. This is the signature Cat’s Eyes.
