<br /><br />Of all of the conventions that appear in many of the retro action films, it is The Professional: Golgo 13 that mixes them all into one package.<br /><br />There is the lone quiet hero, his cliched womanising, a group of codenamed mercenaries each with unique skills and mysterious histories, a man in opposition to Duke who hates him purely, and over the top action sequences throughout.<br /><br />And although this is what many people would just think of as an animation, there are performances that actually seem as though they are real. We feel Golgo's loneliness and Leonard Dawson's hate and his daughter in law's pain.<br /><br />It is the art of the film that really is portrayed amazingly throughout. The scene in which Duke's car speeds along the beach, or when Gold and Silver (Two of the hired mercenaries) attack him in Dawson's office building near the climax of the film are genius. It is the simplicity of the art that shows what needs to be shown and keeps the story linear, instead of making a muzzled storyline as in other action films.<br /><br />This film doesn't try to make itself more than what it is. It knows that it is an action film and uses this as the foundation to work with, instead of making out it is some sort of psychological examination of killers like so many Hollywood films. It just is what it is, and does this well.<br /><br />Just another note: The scene in which Gold and Silver are introduced and their violent histories are without a doubt one of the greatest and chilling scenes in cinema history.