Leon - The Director's Cut [Blu-ray]

Product Information

But don’t just simply label Leon as a gun-toting actioner, for Luc Besson crafted something utterly beautiful with this ’94 offering as he explored the relationship and burgeoning bond between the movie’s two protagonists. It’s a masterpiece of mainstream cinema that twists all the conventions on their heads, and still manages to thrill, enthral, and move, even now 25 years past its original release. When Léon is out on a job, Mathilda fills a bag with guns from Léon's collection and sets out to kill Stansfield. It seems absolutely crazy to think that Luc Besson’s Leon is now celebrating 25 years since its initial release, but it is indeed 25 years and counting since this iconic movie was first released in 1994. However, in the meantime, Besson left Gaumont Film Company to start his own movie studio, EuropaCorp.

The majority of said footage further shines the spotlight on the moments shared by Leon and Mathilda, which adds a few nice touches to the overall narrative of Leon.Maïwenn, Luc Besson's sixteen year old wife at the time of filming, says the film was inspired by their relationship. She seeks shelter with lone hitman Leon (Reno) and, when she learns his profession, demands he train her so she can avenge the slaying of her family. The site's critics consensus reads, "Pivoting on the unusual relationship between seasoned hitman and his 12-year-old apprentice—a breakout turn by young Natalie Portman—Luc Besson's Léon is a stylish and oddly affecting thriller. The first line in the lyrics, "this is from Matilda", refers to Léon's last words, shortly before his grenades detonate and kill Stansfield.

Whether you’re rewatching the movie for the hundredth time or checking Leon out with fresh eyes, the film is a classic that still holds up just as a well in 2019 as it did back in 1994. The cinematography is wonderful, and he presents a vision of New York, in terms of colour and composition that we rarely see in films set in that city. There’s only so much time in the world, and there are so many movies that are definitive in their genre, that mark special moments in time, that revolutionise cinema, or are just simply that good that it is impossible to see them all.This could be the sticking point in the film, except the emotional maturity of the characters redeems this story arc.

It was commercially successful in Japan, being certified gold for 100,000 copies shipped in December 1999. The additional material is found in the film's second act, and it depicts more of the interactions and relationship between Léon and Mathilda, as well as explicitly demonstrating how Mathilda accompanies Léon on several of his hits as "a full co-conspirator", to further her training as a contract killer.

I do have every intention of getting around to watching them; it’s just getting around to it that is hard. He picks up a 12 year old girl after she is orphaned in a brutal fashion, takes her in, and starts to teach her his trade, how to kill, even taking her on jobs. In the 2013 book, Poseur: A Memoir of Downtown New York City in the '90s, Marc Spitz wrote that the film is "considered a cult classic". The only light in her family is her little brother, while the only person who notices her is the man who lives down the hall from her apartment. Léon, after discovering her plan in a note left for him, rescues Mathilda, killing two more of Stansfield's men in the process.

He tells her that he loves her and to meet him at Tony's place in an hour, moments before the ESU team blow up the apartment. One day, Léon meets Mathilda Lando, a lonely twelve-year-old who lives with her dysfunctional family in an apartment down the hall from Léon, and has stopped attending class at her school for troubled girls. After they discover that he has been stealing from their stash, DEA agents invade the apartment, led by their boss, the sharply dressed drug-addict Norman Stansfield.Mathilda walks onto a field near the school to plant Léon's houseplant, as she had told Léon, to "give it roots". There is an extended version of the film, referred to as "international version", " version longue", or " version intégrale". One of his men arrives and informs him that Léon killed Malky, one of the corrupt DEA agents, in Chinatown that morning. It is the best Luc Besson film that I have seen to date, combining a box office crowd pleaser with art-house sensibilities. Mathilda looks up to Léon and quickly develops a crush on him, often telling him she loves him but he does not reciprocate.