Golgo 13: The Professional

(In this very special Dean Talks Anime we're doing away with the standard Overture, Crescendo, Finale approach. Dean's been up way too late, drinking heavily and has been channeling the spirit of G.I. Joe file card writer Larry Hama.)

History: Golgo 13 is the Ultimate Assassin. He routinely is paid large amounts of money by people to kill other people while having sex with their women. He seems to have unlimited funding, contacts, ammunition, hit points, and ladies at his beck and call. His one facial expression has never been known to change in the entire 40 years he's been around. He has been known to be able to sustain grenade rounds to the chest and, after having sex with a woman, be right on the battlefront the next day. The only being that has been known to challenge Golgo 13 is Chuck Norris. It is unknown weather or not Chuck Norris gets any.

Weapons and Gear: 1) Pair of aviator sunglasses that went out of style even among aviators in the mid 1980s, you know, after "Airwolf" was cancelled? 2) Attaché case with broken down M-16 3) Customized M-16 to be a precision sniper rifle, light, and break away 4) Big ass handgun that seems to change from book to book. Usually a Magnum or Python.

Golgo 13 is the longest running adult action comic in Japan. In a nutshell, this comic is testosterone with a side dish of political and military gobbledygook that is really just a vessel for Golgo 13 having sex and world leaders talking about him as a God-Who-Walks-Amongst-Us. For being an unstoppable, and stealthy assassin, everyone in the world seems to know who he is. It makes Bill Clinton sweat bullets!

Before I move into the movies I have to touch base on this. The NES video game of the Golgo 13 franchise.

This thing... I don't know. It plays like "Rolling Thunder" with lots of clunky dialogue. And sometimes you have to snipe people (With your customized M-16!) in a very difficult manner, say... from a moving helicopter. Oh, and you have to SCUBA into an enemy base, taking apart shark after shark with your knife! The most talked about point in the game, however, is the fact that there is nookie within the NES packaging.

Of course, this was before the whole rating system on video games... But really, if you're looking to yank the dragon to two silhouettes embracing, turning off the light, then filling your health meter, by all means track down an emulator. Apparently the second game (As if you couldn't get enough of the first!) was even more risqué, using all 8 bits for cut old USA network style nookie. But we've evolved as console gamers. Now we can make Kratos "rock the boat" should we desire. Go out and date people. They're called girls... talking to them is the first step towards touching them.

Anyway, let's tackle the larger pain first...

Hey, that's not MY copy of "Golgo 13: The Professional"! That's the ultra modern newly released DVD cover. Here's how I got taken in:

Does that not look COOL! There aren't any still images from the movie on the back either. Should have been a red flag... But then again, we could have had the first cover...

Oh baby, spread my wallet... What is that, fan art? If it weren't for "Ninja Scroll" the U.S. Manga Corps would have been yesterday's news a long time ago.

But on with the pain...

Our opening pretty much tells us how the typical Golgo 13 adventure rolls out. Clips of a plane landing, a VIP getting out amidst flashbulbs, and sinister flashes of an M-16 being assembled. Then the fatal shot is always done in detail, with X-rays, cut aways, multiple angles, you know. This all ends with a shot of Duke (I get to call him Duke, cuz' we tight) flying off in a small single engine aircraft. Finally, a photograph montage that typically proves how much of a badass Duke Togo is.

As the credits flash by, Duke rolls into a lighthouse as a VIP party is held on a very important yacht... the size of a cruise ship. We flip from the big bad CEO, Leonard Dawson giving a speech on how his son, Richard Dawson, shall be inheriting the company. Meanwhile, Duke is punching out the lighthouse keeper, then settling in to snipe the crap outta someone. As soon as Richard is named the successor... KABLAM! He gets one in the brainpan. He falls in the pool dramatically as birds fly off, whiteness fills the screen, and Robert Dawson cradles his dead son in his arms in the classic "NOOOOOOO!!!" pose. Meanwhile, Duke rolls out in his white Mustang Charger. Is this 80s enough yet?

Once again, Duke gets away Scot-free and bangs some nameless chick in a blue hotel room. For no good reason we cut from Duke on the run to him knocking boots. Well I should say she's knocking the boots. He's kind of lying there, stone faced and impassive. Why bother when you're a eunuch? I forgot... the ladies throw themselves onto his fire pole because his manliness DEMANDS it.

Then we cut to a cemetery. Duke's been contacted by a Bishop who happens to be related to a big time mob family. Said family was just rubbed out in a nice montage, one has to admit. The Bishop knows who called the hit, the mysterious Dr. Z. Naturally, being a Bishop, he used the Church's riches to hire a hit man. For great justice!!! After the setup and info dump, the Bishop kills himself, no doubt regretting the fact he'd never be 1/10 th as manly as Duke Togo.

Now, it could have been a flashback. Hard to tell, really, because we cut to Duke banging the chick again. Then, brazen as balls, Duke's informant rolls in. Duke doesn't seem to mind; neither does his zombie like plaything. He keeps at it while the informant gives him the dirt on Dr. Z's home.

A lot of the info dump is put on a Betamax recording, so Duke stops for a bit, dresses, then settles in to watch it with a fine port and smokes Parliament cigarettes. It's mostly about Dr. Z's daughter, Cindy. Naturally Cindy's a stacked spoiled rich girl who's interests are diamonds, walking on the beach topless and with a mink stole, and the manliness that is Duke Togo.

You can see it in his soulless eyes. Duke Togo must have this woman in order to kill Dr. Z.

So he starts by waiting in a restaurant. Cindy wants to go in the restaurant as well... But alone. No other customers. She sends over a mook to explain things to Duke, in which Duke offers his rebuttal, the gut shot. Naturally, beating up her bodyguards is the ultimate aphrodisiac to Cindy. By now she's wetter than Louisiana after a levee break. TO prove this as Duke's being patted down for weapons she's sensually licking her lips and posing, etc.

Hey! I now know what's in the Matrix's orgasm cake! Refined Duke Togo!

Well this all leads up to Cindy dragging Duke along to her father's mansion, and then taking him in a womanly manner as appropriate to Duke Togo. She's all over him; he's stone faced and passive. Apparently she's known all along he's Golgo 13, and here to kill her father. But she doesn't care at all. She even tells off her father over the phone as Duke's "Puttin' on his boots". Of course, the phone is in the safe. Cindy can only open this phone safe with a small key around her neck...

Phone... In a safe... What the hell! What if Cindy needs pizza in a hurry!? I mean... it's a nice phone. All old timey and stuff, but it's hardly the red line to Russia. Even the Batphone was only under a cake display glass.

Now Duke's outta there and set up for another meeting with his informant. The informant gives him a watch with prongs... this seems important enough to document.

Then he's back for another fun day with Cindy. This time it's her birthday, and being daddy's little girl they're horseback riding. Cindy issues a warning that everyone who has tried to kill her father has wound up dead, so Duke should get away now while everyone's distracted. She points him out a path and he takes it, while she goes off to a cliff face, disrobes, and swims along the shore. We cut between that and Duke being ambushed by all of Cindy's guards. It's sex and violence for those afflicted with ADD.

Utterly defeating all the guards, Duke then creeps back to Cindy's room. He then uses the watch, which is in reality a small timed bomb. He finds out the phone in the safe is a fake, and Cindy is actually Dr. Z.

Cindy now realizes this and charges off on her white horse to battle. Duke awaits her in his white Mustang, calmly steps out with his M-16, aims... and the entire time a play by play is being said in the background by an unnamed watcher. Naturally, Duke drops Cindy. As soon as he gets into his car, the unnamed voice shouts "Now! Fire!" and bullets tear through the Mustang. As soon as it catches fire, Duke is able to swim away under the cover of carnage. The car goes boom, and we then cut to the next scene.

Duke heads back to the church, for whatever god-awful reason. His job's done, the money's in his account. Might be the right moment for a little "Duke Time". But no, he heads inside where the church is wrecked. Pews askew, candles toppled and hacked, and the priest that was accompanying the bishop is skewered to a cross. Duke simply tells the priest that the job is done, the priest smiles, and then dies. Just then... AMBUSH!!! Three very lithe commandos who have a variety of piercing and cutting implements jump Duke. As he bolts for the door, he's stuck with a spike, ripped across the back with a hook, and then shot out by the entire Army National Guard of New York.

Now for a little overkill. We're introduced to the voiceover man from before and Duke's new nemesis. Lt. Bob Bragen is a US army special investigator. And such a nice guy too, he has the National Guard blow up the entire church. Only way to be sure, right?

Joke's on them. Duke had a speedboat just for such a contingency. He pulls out the spike and actually winces with pain. Wow, emotion.

We cut to Duke's informant, who's a clockmaker by trade. He's busy putting together a watch when something spooks him. Out from the shadows comes a gangly huge albino freak that proceeds to garrote the informant in a mass of blood spray. Of course Duke comes on the scene later and the informant still has enough wind to belt out the dangers and a lead to who's targeting him. As the clockmaker dies, Duke salutes him by placing his hand over his shoulder as the watchmaker's corpse spins round and round to an up-tempo music box ditty. The background is a bunch of warped clocks. Well that's just precious... someone tried to get dramatic.

Now we see who wants Duke dead. Leonard Dawson of Dawson Industries from the start of the movie! This Dawson guy has major pull. He's got the heads of the CIA, FBI and Pentagon in his sitting room, having a few drinks. And may I say, the head of the FBI is sporting a fine quadruple chin. Oh, and a widow is there... It seems that the late Leonard Dawson was married. Laura Dawson is passionless and in the corner as powerful men discuss methods on killing her husband's assassin.

And now we meet the albino freak. Lt. Bragen had this psycho, named Snake, shipped in special. In order to show off Snake's abilities, he lets him off the hook and spike special ops guys from the church. After a few gristly killings later, Snake creepily slithers up to Laura Dawson. Laura slaps him down hard, but this isn't over, oh... not by a long shot.

So now Duke is in San Francisco. He does a bit of a montage seeing a bit of the sights. The Golden Gate Bridge, the cityscape... the... Well they got the Golden Gate right, I'll give them that much. I'm just saying, sure it was 1983 but surely Japan has an encyclopedia or two for source material. Anyway, Duke meets up with his fixer, Rita. She hands him over a tricked out tiny car with racing stickers all over it and a few new parts for his M-16. Duke's more than happy to pay for her services... but she'd prefer barter. Like every other woman who's crossed his path, Rita needs Duke's service revolver in her holster... giggidy.

So they get it on as silhouettes against a blinking neon sign. And she just doesn't shut up. Keeps on going on how she missed Duke and how she was always so worried he wouldn't come back. Blah, blah, blah... Duke pays her anyway, because he keeps it... Professional. And for you geeks who get off to sex in violent anime movies, I have but this to say...

Duke's job for tonight is to kill an ex-nazi who's holed up in a penthouse at the top of a strangely angular building. This penthouse is completely lined with bulletproof glass. The military under Bragen has scoped out the site too, and concludes there are two points that Duke could shoot at the penthouse from. He's staffed each one with lots of guards, all the while letting a Nazi war criminal booze it up in his penthouse with a bunch of hookers. But there is one fatal flaw in Bragen's plan. Duke plans on shooting through another building to take out this scumbag. As the military scrambles to get to Duke, he takes the shot... rapid fire of five shots through the first building (That, I might add, he couldn't even see through) and each bullets falls in line perfectly at the bullet proof glass to shatter it and leave one with enough kinetic energy to splatter the nazi's head right open on his hooker party guest.

So now Bragen hustles to get Duke. The military cars "Conceal" themselves to be cop cars and they haphazardly chase Duke's dinky racer. There is a prerequisite "The bridge is out" jump that Duke makes and no other car can. And a cliché roadblock complete with bazooka. As the rinky-dink car explodes, through the haze comes Duke, blazing in with his M-16. As Bragen runs off, each soldier of the blockade is mowed down while no bullet can ever reach Duke's strafing form at point blank range. Then Bragen initiates the "Showdown". Duke vs. Bragen's large Cadillac.

Bragen barrels at duke incredibly fast. Out of ammo for the M-16, Duke calmly draws out his handheld BFG and sights in. One shot, and Bragen has a hole in his noggin. Not to be outdone, however, with Bragen's last ounce of strength he J-turns and shoots Duke in the chest. Oh, well played Bragen. Like the car wouldn't have crushed him...

We now cut to Rita. She's getting things ready to jet out of town before whoever's targeting Duke can catch up to her. Oops! Too late, Snake slithers out of the shadows and kills her in no short order.

Now we go to a more pleasant place. The Dawson estate, somewhere in a picturesque wheat field. Just to recall, Leonard Dawson's son was killed by Duke at the beginning of the movie. It's really why we're all here, and not just a string of Duke killing someone then being chased. Leonard then tells his life story to the directors of the CIA, FBI and Pentagon, and then flops to berating them for not killing Golgo 13. Standard evil industrialist rant to government goons "I bought you bastards, and you still haven't brought me this Golgo 13?!!!". So he does what any sane man would do, let the creepy albino Snake freak take his son's widow in a husbandly fashion. Frankly it was sinister enough that the movie alluded to the fact Snake was going to rape the widow, Laura Dawson. But they SHOWED it. TWICE!!! Asshats.

We find Duke, bandaged and chilling in the Amazon with yet another informant buddy. They talk for a bit how everyone Duke knows is getting killed... If I were Duke's informant the "Gone Fishing" sign would be out. But instead, the informant then tells us how cool Duke is while they part company.

Then we're immediately taken back to Leonard's boat for another meeting with the government directors. As he sits in the dark of his inner sanctum, we can see an alligator swimming in a tank behind him. I'm waiting for him to cackle evilly and steeple his fingers. Instead he demands that the FBI director use his pull to bring in two monumental badass muthafuckkas known as Gold and Silver. Problem being, they're both in a supermax prison for, you know... snapping and killing innocent people after they got back from their tour of duty in wherever.

We flicker around for a few scenes. Dukes on holiday, contemplating how to assassinate the sun. The FBI director frees the psychos. Leonard checks on his granddaughter that he's locked in a run down basement to practice shooting with a butler (Boo!). Laura's raped by Snake again. At the end of all this she confronts Leonard with this gem of a realization...

At this point, she leaves the Dawson estate for good. Personally, I would have left after the first rape, but you know... Women...

So Dawson unleashes his last plan to kill Duke. First up, he sends in his granddaughter and butler to take Duke out at the airport. The little girl has a gun stuffed in her sweetly innocent doll. As Duke steps off the plane the girl takes the shot. And she misses utterly. The one thing she has been training to do for the past... god knows how long and she screws it up. The butler tries to draw a gun but is instantly killed by Duke. And yet, none of the passersby seem to care. No one's running away, or getting help. No, they mill by as Duke kills an elderly man who's protecting a child.

So now Duke's talking to his Amazon buddy in a junkyard. After the information dump on Dawson Industry's office building that seems to be a deathtrap, his informant reveals that Leonard has his wife and kids. Now, instead of petitioning Duke, the god who walks among us, for help, he sees fit to try and draw a gun on him. His reward? A shot in the head and landing face up in garbage dump water. Ewww.

And now it's time for "The big fight". Duke starts out by crashing a motorcycle in through the front doors, then leaping off to send a volley into the bike, causing it to explode. This would have made a lot more sense if there were actually guards down her, but hey... I'm not there. There could have been a million rent-a-cops off screen.

But now we get to the best part of the movie. The first use of CG animation in a Japanese Anime! Behold and tremble!

Yeah... I'll believe I was actually in a NYC skyline circa 1983. This just proves that just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD.

Duke runs from minigun fire for a while until one of the helicopters crash into the building... for no good reason. The billowing smoke from the explosion leads up to the confrontation with Snake. Snake corners Duke in an elevator and beats seven kinds of hell out of him. Until one of the helicopter jockeys decided to gun down the elevator.

Duke uses Snake's albino bulk to soak up the damage. A nice end to a nice guy. See you Snake, you rapist bastard.

Now it's all up to the Cobra rejects, Gold and Silver. Silver is lightning quick and wears a mask. Gold is also lightning quick but has a golden eye and clunky golden gauntlet. They then proceed to kick seven more kinds of hell out of Duke until Duke turns the tables and shoots them.

But just as Duke thinks he's finally out, they both get back up. Oh noes! Unkillable monsters! Hax! Let's get over this then and talk deaths. Duke kills Gold by smashing the back of his head in, then shooting out his golden eye. Silver bites it when he rages, misses the bull rush attack, has his mask drop off, revealing that he's really the Cyptkeeper, and Duke stuffs a grenade in Silver's mouth. Nice.

Well, old Leonard knows when he's licked all right. He gets the rest of the crappy CGI helicopters to stand down. As Duke stands there, silent and motionless, Leonard tells him how Duke was a worthy adversary and all that... then promptly jumps out of the window to kiss pavement. While Leonard falls his son's suicide note is read out in the background. As it turns out, Richard hired Duke to kill himself since he didn't have the courage to run his father's company. To show he's a nice guy, Duke shoots Leonard just before he hits the ground. Once again, flawless headshot with a revolver while 63 stories up. Bravo my Togo, bravo.

Final scene? Yep, one more. Laura's out turning tricks. She spots Duke in the rain. She pulls a gun out of her handbag, and Duke just stares at her through his sunglasses... in the rain... He just walks off, she fires. Duke still walks on through the uncaring crowds. Once again, unfazed by gunfire.

I have to ask myself, why the hell did I buy this? Oh yeah, I was 15 and liked sex and violence. Also, I watched "Queen Bee" first, which left my expectations a little higher. Not much higher, granted... and I'll be reviewing that too. Until then, I give you the live action Golgo 13!

Sonny, you poor dumb bastard. I hope you can keep a straight face while... well... all the time...