Director: Junya Sato
Script: Takeo Saito
Cast: Ken Takakura, Arash Jaj, Mohson Sohrabi, Jaleh Sam, Y. Sheerandami, Jalal
Running time: 144 minutes
Year: 1973
Certificate: 15
The Golgo 13 of the title is a Japanese hit-man whose trade-mark kill is sniping using an M16 rifle at a distance. Our stony faced, never smiling, stoic killer is hired by an Interpol-like organisation to take out the head of an Iranian Crime syndicate, namely Max Boa. He’s been involved with human trafficking and other unpleasant past-times and the powers that be are failing to deal with his extensive activities so they decide to bring in a deniable outsider to do the job for them.
Along for the ride is Catherine, a PA/field operative, who insists on sleeping with Golgo, prior to jetting off with him, but then is surprised to find him missing in the morning, flying off without her. Doesn’t she know that all good anti-heroes work best alone? She, of course, goes after him, falls in love with him and then becomes a ‘burden’ that he didn’t ask for – it was the 70s after all.
Gogol travels to Tehran to locate Boa, but nothing ever going smoothly and he’s quickly captured and tortured, but manages to escape because of his excellent constitution and hyper flexibility. As the bodies start to pile up the mission becomes personal for Golgo and his revenge is a thorough one, including taking out the mafia boss’s pet bird in an explosive bullet hit!
Like many Japanese films this one is a little over-long, but is still an enjoyable watch. While the acting is nothing to write home about, lead Ken Takakura (playing Golgo) is charismatic, despite the limitations of the script/character, and he gets to travel a fair bit so we get to see some cool and rather unusual locations throughout Iran, which, I guess, nowadays one would be struggling to get permission to visit/film at. In fact, one of the special features mentions that the production was very lucky and got to film in some great locations, including at the very ancient (515 BC) Persepolis.
Despite a lengthy runtime director Junya Sato keeps things interesting with regular significant scenes, of one sort or another, coming thick, if not so fast. Stylistically, Sato clearly likes lots of quietness and stillness in his nicely-framed shots. Even fairly innocuous shots of two cars, side-by-side, look like care and attention were bestowed upon them. Unfortunately, much of the film is style-over-substance, with some poor dialogue (“Women are just lubricating oil to your killing machine, aren’t they, Golgo?” says Catherine) and iffy plot contrivances that nearly derail the film in places.
Also, it’s all a bit silly – surely Golgo is the wrong person to hire as an assassin for a Middle Eastern assignment at that time as he stands out like a sore thumb, not helped when he sits in a big car in the middle of a rough area, while out on a stake-out; he’s somewhat overly conspicuous!
Ultimately, the film turns into a game of ‘cat and mouse’ between the villain and anti-hero, with an ending that proves the old adage that there are no real winners when vengeance is the driver.
Eureka! have done a good job in relation to picture quality and I, for one, am glad they chose not to diminish the movie’s natural film grain, which looks nice. The sound quality is also very good, especially for a film that’s now 50 year’s old.
Golgo 13 is being distributed by Eureka! on their Eureka Classics special edition Blu-ray. There are a number of extras on the disc including:
Luck 13: Junya Sato’s biographers on Golgo 13 (16 mins) – Film writer Tatsya Masuto and film critic Masaaki Nomura discuss the director’s career and explain that he passed away just months after they’d finished their book about him. Apparently he was a very easy-going director who was at his busiest during the 1950s. Japanese cinema was in a slump during the 70s when he made this and The Bullet Train (also with Ken Takakura). They think Golgo 13 is faithful to its Manga source material, hence the reason why Golgo’s facial expression doesn’t really change, whatever he’s doing. He even looks pissed off having sex! However, in the books he usually turns up at the end to fire a single shot off before disappearing until next mission.
Original theatrical trailer ((3.5 mins) –An over-long trailer that is split into sections, marked by each target/kill, but it does reveal that they filmed across Iran for three months.
