“He’s the toughest guy I’ve ever seen. What’s he made of?”
A
mainstay of manga since 1968, the
assassin-for-hire Golgo 13 is a kind of black-market Bond, licensed to kill by
his own authority. The series grew out of creator Takao Saito’s freewheeling 007
adaptations, and revelled in depictions of sex and violence that would have
made even Ian Fleming blanch. The character’s background remains obscure (it is
not touched upon here), and if he does have a moral centre, it lies at the
heart of a labyrinth. The fact that the code name “Golgo 13” is partly a
reference to Judas Iscariot – spuriously identified as the 13th
apostle – does not exactly testify to an honourable nature.
As
a director, Sato was known for his left-wing politics, attacks on militarism (Story of Military Cruelty) and dissection
of social issues in a string of bracing yakuza films. It is hard to detect an
authorial stamp on Golgo 13, an
assignment for which he professed little enthusiasm. For one thing, Sato was nonplussed
by the protagonist’s inscrutability. “It’s difficult to begin with to know just
how to approach the character,” admitted the director, who cast Sixties
superstar Ken Takakura – ironically, an actor synonymous with nobility – in the
title role.[i]
Takakura betrays nary a flicker of extraneous emotion, his taciturnity maintaining
Golgo’s mystique. There is no depth to the characterisation but that, arguably,
is the point. He is a cold fish. A little repartee wouldn’t have gone amiss,
but this is not Bond after all. Takakura’s interpretation of Golgo, moreover,
shows little interest in sex. Given the services of Catherine, a comely PA, he
beds her reluctantly and only, it seems, to tire her out so that he can sneak away
in the night. (Which callousness does, admittedly, bear the imprint of 007 and
later earns Golgo a classic upbraiding: “Is a woman just oil for a killing
machine like you?”)
This
story finds the killer and his customised M-16 in Iran at the behest of an
unidentified intelligence agency. His target is one Max Boa, a mysterious mobster
who traffics in weapons and kidnapped women, keeps a retinue of lookalikes to
throw enemies off his trail and has a parrot for a confidant. Far from
mimicking the hyper-graphic style of Saito’s manga, Sato shoots much of the film like a promotional brochure,
from gratuitous belly-dancing to gunfights among the ruins of Isfahan and Persepolis;
he could almost have been auditioning for the Iranian tourist board. Takakura
does a lot of driving and strikes many a macho pose in sunglasses, leaving the
supporting cast – who appear to be exclusively Iranian, but are dubbed in
Japanese – to bulk up the meagre plot.
The
early expository scenes drag, but the film livens up with the introduction of
the villain, as well as two hard cases he imports from Paris, although neither
their names – Simon and Douglas – nor their looks – solidly western Asian – are
remotely French. They are no match for Golgo, of course, whose nihilistic
ruthlessness is underlined during the showdown at Persepolis. Catherine,
doggedly loyal despite Golgo’s indifference, pays the ultimate price in one of
those stand-offs where the hero is expected to surrender to spare the girl. Not
this time. And police inspector Aman, whose wife is among the captives, comes
to the assassin’s aid and is left, grievously wounded, to mop up the henchmen
while Golgo pursues Mr Big. Bullets fly. As do feathers.
Golgo 13 is a slick and sinewy thriller, but it didn’t trouble the box
office. Sato alluded to difficulties with his production partners in Iran,
which, together with the expense of shooting abroad, may have put off his
superiors at Toei from investing in a putative franchise – “If you were going
to do the films like the manga, you
really needed to show the character in these other locations.”[ii]
(Takao Saito was also reportedly unhappy with Sato’s adaptation. Maybe it was
too tame for him.) Nonetheless, Toei bankrolled a second film four years later
– Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon, the
last live-action version to date, had Sonny Chiba in the title role, a cheaper
aesthetic and a baggier narrative. A truer sense of the manga’s depravity can be gleaned from the 1983 animated feature The Professional, with geysers of blood
and pneumatic sex objects torn straight from the page.
Kevin Grant
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