Golgo 13: Queen Bee – Review

Golgo 13 is back, this time hired to kill a female revolutionary whose as brutal and effective as himself! Full of action with a mad violent opening that has to be seen to be believed. He has no personality, no emotion, no apparent motivation. Duke is simply a killing machine. The animation is very neat and looks great, but the cliched over the top ridiculous storyline and borderline terrible voice acting just about kills anything enjoyable with Golgo 13: Queen Bee. In short, unless you are in the mood for lots of nudity and useless violence, avoid this movie. Fortunately for you, I was in the mood.

I think my biggest problem was that the story barely focused on Golgo 13 at all. It seems a bit silly to me because it’s named after the guy. Instead, it focuses a lot more on the Queen Bee’s character. It makes Duke Togo out to be some superhero stud James Bond wannabee while the quiet, daring, supercool mofo that I grew to love in the Top Secret Agent video game was nowhere to be seen. There are a number of parties involved, from the candidates past, the Queen Bee’s guerilla affiliation and the political maneuverings of the American system. But, the plot is perhaps less straightforward than it could have been providing a few interesting twists here and there but nothing substantially interesting.

The over the top bloody action, pointless sex, and wooden characters that the viewer ends up not caring about at all make Golgo 13: Queen Bee a very disappointing anime all together. The only extra on the disc is the commentary track by the director and executive producer. They don’t sound like your typical Japanese either, so it was fun to hear. There is however the original trailer for Golgo 13 The Professional inluded on this. I keep hearing that The Professional was a much better composed film so that is next on the list. I do know that what’s better is that all the characters are realistic. There are no immortal psychos like Snake, or Silver and Gold. It is just too bad it is all style with no substance. I won’t even bother getting into how this film is only slightly above tentacle porn as far as being degrading to women…

All there is to the plot is senseless violence and sex, that includes the murder of women and childen plus the implied rape of a child. The story itself is done in such a way that it is simple if you want it to be, and complex if you feel like thinking about it. The Golgo 13 stories always show the corruption of man, and leave you to decide who is the good guy (usually nobody). In short, I can’t stress this enough: offended by sexual content? Pass. I know this is anime, so you need gratuitious sex and violence but cartoon sex has never been that exciting to me and it kind of brought the action to a halt.