Alex and I wanted to watch some anime, and this is free on Amazon Prime, so there you go. Golgo's an assassin, and he kills the son of a powerful tycoon, right as the young man's going to take over as president of the company. So Golgo soon finds himself beset by forces that seem able to easily track him down wherever he goes, and kill anyone close to him. His information specialist, his mechanic, other people who hired him.
It takes him a while, and several near misses to learn who's after him, and that he's got the help of the CIA and the US military. Although perhaps the guys in Army fatigues with bazookas and miniguns were a bit of a clue. Of course the story reveals that for all that Golgo will kill basically anyone he's paid to kill, the tycoon is far worse. He demands a pair of psychopathic twins the CIA experimented on, then dumped in a jungle where they killed 2,000 rebel guerillas, be released from prison and given to him. A fleet of attack helicopters? He gets them. Tries to turn his granddaughter into a killer. He locks his widowed daughter-in-law in a room with a different lunatic, because the guy implied he'd be sure to get Golgo if he got a little time with her.
Spoiler alert: He did not get Golgo.
Oh, and the oil tycoon apparently ordered JFK's assassination. I'd say they were going a little overboard trying to make us root for the hired killer, and against the bereaved father, but I really enjoyed the guy's eventual death, so I guess it worked.
I'm guessing it's faithful to the manga that practically every woman who meets Golgo wants to sleep with him, but the problem is they use the same sort of saxophone melodies for the sex scenes as for the what are supposed to be sort of melancholy scenes of him moving through city streets. Alex and I made a lot of jokes about that. Most of the fight scenes are pretty good, fairly well-animated and designed. The one with the twins seemed underwhelming at first, but the film did a good job of playing with our expectations on that one, and it was actually a pleasant surprise.
We both really hated that the mass helicopter attack was apparently done with the finest computer-generated graphics 1983 had to offer. Just hideous. Did the regular animators run out of time, or did someone honestly think something that was so completely distinct from the entire rest of the film's look was a good idea? I also can't help wondering what happened to the granddaughter. We kind of see what happened to her mother, and it's not good. Film just kind of brushes over the innocent people Golgo had a hand in destroying.
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