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

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That Leon actually notices her where her family does not creates a connection, and when Leon is the only one left to turn to, it’s almost inevitable that connection turns to affection, her first crush. However, in the meantime, Besson left Gaumont Film Company to start his own movie studio, EuropaCorp.

Léon and Mathilda form an unusual relationship, as she becomes his protégée and learns the hitman's trade.It was commercially successful in Japan, being certified gold for 100,000 copies shipped in December 1999. The surround track is vibrant and effective, keeping the dialogue clear throughout, while emphasising the action, making for an immersive presentation. The film was released in France by Gaumont and internationally through Gaumont Buena Vista International on 14 September 1994, and received mostly positive reviews from critics.

Mathilda looks up to Léon and quickly develops a crush on him, often telling him she loves him but he does not reciprocate.On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an approval rating of 74% based on 66 reviews, with an average rating of 6. Unquestionably, Leon is an absolute masterpiece with some jaw-dropping performances from Natalie Portman, Jean Reno, and a turned-up-to-11 Gary Oldman.

Léon killed the father in revenge and fled to New York, where he met Tony and trained to become a hitman.The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, Goodfellas; all films that I haven’t seen. There’s a safety in the realisation that Leon is unable to pose any kind of threat to a 12 year old child. 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. 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. As for the director’s cut element of this Leon release, this is the same director’s cut first seen in 2004 that adds 23 minutes of footage to the movie.

In 2011, director Olivier Megaton told reporters that he and Besson used the script for Mathilda as the basis for Colombiana, a film about a young cleaner played by Zoe Saldaña. Although watching it, I had more of a sense of déjà vu than you might expect from someone who barely caught a frame of Leon while channel hopping or watching a review programme. She’s out getting groceries the day the crooked DEA agents pay her father a visit, looking for some missing dope, and wind up killing her family. In the version released in India, the censors insisted on cutting certain scenes which included Matilda smoking on the stairs, a man pressing the breasts of the woman, 50% reduction in expressions on Stansfield's face after he consumes the drug capsule, 30% reduction in the shootout in the flat, the shooting by Stansfield at the dying man crawling on the floor, the scene where Leon teaches Matilda to use a telescopic gun and the subsequent visuals of her actually selecting a target and killing him ruthlessly in accordance with the shooting lesson, and Matilda's lines "He is my lover' and 'Shut the fuck up', before giving the film an A (adults only) rating. There is an extended version of the film, referred to as "international version", " version longue", or " version intégrale".

English audio track with optional English subtitles, and I have to say that the film looks spectacular. At first, Léon is unsettled by her presence and considers killing her in her sleep but he eventually trains Mathilda and shows her how to use various weapons. 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".