Golgo 13: The Professional (English Dubbed Version)

I watched a movie and it is called Golgo 13: The Professional, directed by Osamu Dezaki, released in 1983. It stars Gregory Snegoff as Golgo 13. I watched the English dubbed version. It is a story about a professional assassin who is assigned a job to kill the son of a wealthy oil tycoon. Having completed the job, Golgo 13 travels to Italy to assassinate a powerful crime boss. Accomplishing that, he is attacked by the U.S. military and secret services and must find out who is after him. It is an interesting spy kind of thriller that is very well made. It is based on the manga series released in May 1983. Golgo 13 is the longest running manga series, starting in 1968 and has had 3 movie adaptations made and a series of episodes made. Golgo 13 is a cool character throughout and has no emotions through the entire movie, which one might say is off putting but he is a professional assassin. I’m not sure if this is the way he is in the manga books but for all intents and purposes, I’d like to think so. This is one of the earlier anime moves that have a distinct drawing style. It has both rich lines and a lot of reflections which give it a film noir style. All of the figures are drawn a little long/tall but it works for this kind of movie. There is a little bit of suspension of disbelief for some of the animatics but like I say, it works for the subject matter being presented. I was quite surprised at the nudity (for which there is a lot right in the first 20 minutes) and the sex. Golgo 13 is basically Bond with the women in this movie but it is covered tastefully and not off putting save for one sequence that involves one of the bad guys, Snake. There was a fair amount of bloody violence as well as dismemberment which was not all that surprising. The music is a kind of jazz/blues hybrid kind of music that fits well with the noir style of the action. The animation is superb. There are striking framing shots of action that look like panels from the manga and they are gloriously detailed, adding much to the action pieces in the movie. There is some early adopted CGI in the climax of the movie that looks cheesy by today’s standards (though, it depends on what movie you are talking about because cheap CGI is cheap CGI) but I admire the director and the studio for attempting something different that would be a technology used later. The CGI isnt all that bad really considering its 1983.
I came across this movie from a review I watched regarding a video game adaptation of Golgo 13 for NES and I thought I’d try to see if I could find it. I have watched many anime movies, Akira, Ninja Scroll, Grave of the Fireflies, Fist of the North Star and a few more so I thought this was a great entry as far as something different. I am always impressed by the creativity it takes to make these films and how they adapt from such great source material (for the most part). This particular movie I really didn’t know anything about apart from the game review and that was enough to get me to watch it. Golgo 13 did remind me of Diabolik, who is an Italian thief which was in graphic novel form later to be adapted into a movie directed by Mario Bava, released in 1968 (and famously riffed as the last episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 tv series). That doesn’t detract from this Golgo 13 movie at all, it was just something I noticed.
Overall, I thought it was a great story with great characters and very compelling to watch. I would suggest tracking it down. It is graphic both in violent imagery and sexual imagery so your mileage may vary.