However, as a French filmmaker, Luc Besson has not given and perhaps will never give us a full-fledged Hollywood commercial production which have something about beautiful American Dream. Actually, with its relentless bloodshed and scrambled, inconclusive narrative and contestable Electra complex, "Leon" is certain to provoke both awe and revulsion. No question about it, Luc Besson made a bold exploration of plausible characters, authentic emotions, unadorned truth and isolated despair in the way many American academic critic disliked.

      I will not give unnecessary details about this movie, but only key drawing. I think that is enough, for good story makes a movie good, but only the talented thought and impressive performance will make a movie immortal.

Leon (by Jean Reno) is a highly professional hit man never misses a shot. At the beginning of the movie, he accomplishes one tasks so neatly and coolly that I begins to consider he is nothing more than a typical Hollywood killer until he goes home.
Out of the common，the cold killer does exercises, drinks milk, irons clothes, waters plants...just as common people does. The style of his sunglasses, woolen hat and even the movie he likes are outdated.
 All of these about Leon is out of a hit man's character, but may be further to true to life.

Mathilda (by Natalie Portman)is a 12-year-old girl from a dysfunctional family. Her father is a drug dealer; her stepmother cares nothing about her and her half-sister enjoys beating her up.
She is doubtless angelic pretty.
She smokes cigarettes and curses dirty words.
She says calmly: 「I finished growing up, I just get older.」

      She is just a little girl expecting love.
 
      Then the movie comes to hinge on an accident that brings these two characters into a collision. A corrupted cop nearly exterminates the whole family of Mathilda——they should have killed one more. However, Leon opens the door and lets in Mathilda therefore saves her life, which shatters everything they've built in their respective lives to keep the change of the past out.

Leon is just a little nice to Mathilda, while she trusts him wholeheartedly  and pays back her all love in an extreme way.
「I don't give a damn shit about sleeping, Leon. I want love...or death. That's it.」Mathilda says to Leon seriously. The eyes she puts on him sent flesh-seeking bullets through his heart. Unfortunately, no man, however responsive, can afford the love of a 12-year-old girl.     
 
  Nevertheless, I insist the meeting of Leon and Mathilda is fated. Even if god wants them to meet some right person in the wrong time , they will be thankful for their mutual understanding and support in the worldly life.

        Mathilda swears her life to revenge when her 4-year-old brother has been killed. She asked Leon to teach her how to be a professional killer. She declares war not only against the cops, but also the messy and twisted thing called Adult Society.
         She grabs the gun and has 6 shoots randomly out of the nearest window, then she looks at Leon firmly. 「Bonnie and Clyde didn't work alone; Thelma and Louise didn't work alone. They were the best.」——How shocked a 12-year-old girl knows Bonnie and Clyde!

       Well, Violence, especially the violence involve children, inevitably inclines audience towards jolting and hate. But thanks to Luc Besson's smart and subtle control, the violence about Mathilda's lessons is fundamentally of a kind of black humor.

Surely, The most fascinating and puzzling part of this movie is the ambiguous relationship between Leon and Mathilda. Although Mathilda claims Leon is her lover, more critics, together with me, basically consider their relationship is a father/daughter or a mentor/apprentice one.   
Of course Luc Besson does not expect 「Electra complex」to be the most interesting thing for those critics. Therefore, it will be said, in his defense, that Mathilda does not know what love from 「father」is, so she clings to Leon like a boyfriend or even a lover. It might explains how Luc Besson manages to make this invidious relationship attracting and touching instead of disgusting,  in spite of some implies plot on Mathilda tempting Leon with sex. However, some critics undermines this argument with uncut International Version DVD——Most people and I only have the American copy which is said to has been cut 24 minutes away from original French copy.
God knows!
In my opinion, all should we do is shutting up and appreciating quietly a most unforgettable roles ——a girl’s purity and a woman’s maturity in Mathilda, and that is all.
      Yes, I can not control myself to express my obsession to Natalie Portman. Though I dare say all the actors chosen are perfect for their roles——Jean Reno has never disappointed me——I am particularly surprised how Natalie Portman pulled off her biggest role in 12. She handled the dramatic elements, complicated emotions with great ease. For a  12-year-old actress to have as much emotional range as her is something quite rare. It may be  the difference from a good actress to a great one.

At the last scene, when Mathilda sobs and utters those words in gun battle:「Leon, I don’t wanna  lose you, Leon…」, Leon answered :「I wanna be happy, sleeping in bed, have roots. You'll never bo alone again.」He knows he may be killed, but he still believe it is a happy ending. 「The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved」——I can not ascertain who said it, but yet believe it.
Leon smiles because he may only be a common person in this world,  but for someone he is the world at the moment.
Mathilda bursts into tears, crying for Leon...and only Leon, because something indispensable she wanted in her new world  will lose forever.

       They are neither saver to each other but they finally learns how to love form the other. Maybe the worst tragedy for them is to be taught how to love through losing it , which is better than never knowing love after all, however.
       「Don't cry because it came to an end, smile because it happened.」said Shelley.
       I believe Mathilda will not waste another minute on crying someday, for whom she will not see again. That is the way we grew gradually.

       Although the movie constantly emphasizes the existential crisis of revenge, it does reinforce quietly some symbolical thing like potted plant of Leon, which means rootless——「He's my best friend. Always happy, no questions. It's like me, you see...no roots.」
       In an unusual display of metaphoric explicitness, Luc Besson tells us that there always exists someone who don't know where and whom they belong to. Leon is rootless, Mathilda is rootless, too.

「Is life always this hard, or just when you're a kid?」
「...Always like this.」
       The lines can't be more bitter. They tell we would have felt pain anyway, even if we had not done anything.
       For the pain of growing and losing is the life itself.

       I would like to point out that Luc Besson did add some unique French flavor to his salad. But it is unnecessary to say more about Luc Besson for his incredible cinematography,   the skilled direction and the distinguishable camera angles. "Leon" is more remarkably affirming: when so many movies are made to dull our awareness with huge mortality、sex scenes and CG  technology, there is still something stirring in some movies about human universal private pain.
       Although I am not a qualified movie critic, I strongly suggest everyone watch this movie for I believe all will find something that deeply touches their souls.

 PS：这片子我是真满稀饭的，我也确实是老吕的FAN，虽然说实话……这家伙的发挥，用君的话说，那是和神谷娘娘的H水准一样，要撞运气的～
这片看得年代，年代久远写的时候已经把台词忘得差不多鸟，昨天又在FTP上拖了个下来……结果又忍不住拖了新片来看……一折腾三四个小时就8见鸟～～（啊啊啊话说《UNDERWORD Ⅱ》还是那么好看啊～Kate Beckinsale你太御姐鸟！紧身黑皮衣果然是好物！我要膜拜你那爱煞人的小腹啊！那段床戏真是让我想把那狗熊一样的男人踢下来自己扑上去啊！ ）←好吧我承认这才是我真实的影评风格——但是我要敢这样写我就等着被英语老师PIA死吧！