Golgo 13: Queen Bee

Not half the film of the original. The storyline seemed to be dumbed down, the animation not as clean. Stylish but no substance. I won't even bother getting into how this film is only slightly above tentacle pr0n as far as being degrading to women....

I was originally gonna save this till tomorrow, but I thought, aw hell let's finish this now and thus I am concluding my little mini-marathon of the Golgo 13 movies with the belated sequel to The Professional, Queen Bee. I'd forgotten how much I liked this one as it's a fairly underappreciated and ambitious follow-up to its predecessor despite a massively reduced budget and much easier-to-follow plot. For being only an hour long, it doesn't waste a moment, it's a very harsh and gritty political thriller that keeps Golgo in the background as this omnipresent threat while the movie focuses heavily on the titular Queen Bee and her campaign. The movie leans on its style quite a bit, both visually and sound-wise, which are both to be expected from an Osamu Dezaki movie, but ultimately feels undercooked due to its short length, it's got plenty of ideas and commentary but it never quite comes across smoothly enough to really stick the landing.

i can't help thinking there are plenty of japanese anime films that get made just so a bunch of animators can sit in a room and draw boobs all day long. I rented this because I loved the video game counterpart on NES 8-bit. I never knew there was a cartoon or even another plot to go along with it. But this film 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 were some neat things but nothing to really keep me awake while watching it at 3 a.m..

In the review for Golgo 13: The Professional, I mentioned how I liked that they focused on the big bad's story, which a lot of these movies don't.

In Queen Bee, they apparently had the same idea and expanded even more on the story for the target. I love that.

As for people complaining about this movie: 1) Complaining about sex and how the movie is 'degrading women'. Really? It's a movie where people, including children are killed and boobs are what is bothering these social justice warriors? This is why SJW's should be banned from society and confined to places where they would feel welcome, like in the middle east (people like protecting and covering women there as well, what leftists liberals love).

2) People complaining about movie not focusing on Golgo 13 over Queen Bee. THAT'S WHY IT'S INTERESTING. Revealing everything about a cold-hearted killer like Golgo serves no purpose but make it another cliché-fest. Developing the character of his targets and making you feel for them, before Golgo snuffs out their life is what makes these movies brutal. Apparently, some genius even rated the movie low based on a stupid video game.

This is one of a few anime movies that I have actually turned off while watching it. Usually I can at least get some humor out of an anime; this one wasn't even kind enough to offer that. It might have had an excellent story line; but I wouldn't know, as I only saw the first 15-20 minutes of it. That time alone made me not even care if there was a story to back it. The plot that I had gathered was "sex sex sex sex sex, kill somebody, sex sex sex." I didn't care about anyone in the movie. This was a disappointment, and I would recommend many, many other titles over this one. Golgo 13 is an anime worth passing over; I assure you that your time could be better spent.