Notorious Anituber Digi-nee has said in a few places that when you’re a fan of a certain artist or work of art you should also check out what prior art influenced them. Rick Worley I’m sure would agree, his frustration with most Star Wars fans is partly their lack of interest in actually watching the older films that were an influence on George Lucas in making the 6 Star Wars films, especially the more obscure ones.
I agree on principle, but it can be difficult when the older work you’re aware of that has influenced what you like is more obscure.
La Femme Nikita and Leon: The Professional are two Luc Besson films that are frequently cited as the principal inspirations for my absolute favorite Anime, Noir. So I’ve been meaning to try and watch them for a while and finally got around to getting started.
I decided to watch Leon first partly because it’s the one that’s in English, and because I like Jean Reno via Godzilla 98 and Natalie Portman as one of the internet’s most vocal Prequel Stans. And Gary Oldman is the real best performance of The Dark Knight trilogy so I also expected him to be good.
However it also turned out to be the one that was a lot easier to find. I had wanted see both movies the same day and do one blog post for both of them, but that didn't work out. So I'm writing this having at this time still only seen Leon.
It turns out this particular genre of film isn’t all Luc Besson has done and there are in fact two Besson films I’d already seen, The Messenger and much of The Fifth Element. I’m really not a fan of The Messenger.
I saw this movie's influence on Noir quite a bit, which is exciting since I was/am kind of expecting it to be the less significant influence of the two. I saw it in the general style, in many of the tactics of the titular assassin, but I also saw specific details that I think Noir was homaging in pretty meaningful ways. I even think the movie’s music was a little bit of an influence on what Yuki Kajura did, it’s still very different Yuki totally did her own thing, but I do think she also watched this movie.
The film is good, in addition to being an influence on future Anime I also see how it is both similar to and distinguishes itself from the general trends of 90s crime fiction, like the works of Tarantino. If you like those kinds of movies you’ll probably also see something in this one.
Part of the reason La Femme Nikita is so hard to find is that in general popculture that movie has been eclipsed by it’s TV reboots. But those TV shows while having technically the same starting premise are barely the same genre. If you’re a fan of those shows and want a similar Anime I’m more inclined to recommend Witch Hunter Robin. Of those two shows I've watched the first season and a half of the CW's Nikita and the pilot of the late 90s Canadian show. Going off that both shows have their strong suits.
I do already know enough about that premise to say that Gunslinger Girl might actually be the Anime with a more similar premise then Noir given its emphasis on the older male handlers. I like Noir partly for its lack of any significant male characters.
So while I was working on trying to find that movie I decided to watch another more recent piece of East Asian media that cites Nikita as it’s inspiration, a South Korean movie called The Villainess. It was… interesting. I don't think I'll be writing anything about it but it was interesting.
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