Yingtang Lu__Léon: The Professional

Leon: The Professional is a love/action film. First of all, the love in the film is ambiguous. It is not clear wether this is lovers' love or elder to youth love, or even the attraction between two persons have similar feeling of life. The reason of such ambiguity is that interaction between Leon and Mathilda contains qualities from all sorts of definitions of love. Second, this film is an action film with displays of guns and gun fights. Mathilda is often holding a gun in the film as Leon himself is a professional hitman with excellent skills in assassination.

As a hitman, Leon goes through his life with no other relationship except with his intermediary, who helps him to find contracts of assassination. He has only friend, an Chinese evergreen, which is a plant. Additionally, he lives alone in an apartment and has never sleep on the bed. His solitude highly matches his skills in assassination. The film shows his attempt to assassinate a head of a gang, which the assassination is successful while he walks out the scene with no damage. However, the solitude is the way for him to hide his fear of loneliness and lack of security.

On other hand, Mathilda born in a family with endless fights and arguments between parents. The lack of attention and love from the parents makes her closing her heart just like Leon. She is a smart kid from her way to talk to avoid going to school and that makes her to admire the world of adult.

The meeting between Leon and Mathilda is like two persons both trying to act like an adult. Mathilda uses a seductive tone to greet Leon. In response, Leon uses a father-like tone to ask Mathilda about the reason of hiding the cigarette. Mathilda is only a 12 year-old girl; therefore, her way to talk show that she wants to be treated as an adult, but Leon did the opposite by using the father-like tone. However, Leon is a lonely person who lacks of security and is not social. That means Leon is acting like an adult toward Mathilda too.

While the dirty cop, Norman, is looking for the drug that Mathilda's father hid after murdered Mathilda's family including her beloved brother, Mathilda walks pass the door of her apartment straight to Leon's apartment and begs him to open the door before the dirty cop found her. This scene is a forced opening of Leon's heart. Leon's other side is revealed after he lets Mathilda to enter his apartment.

The later of the story is about the development of this ambiguous relationship between Leon and Mathilda. They look like friends, father/daughter, teacher/student, and lovers. During the time, they learn each other as well as love each other. Mathilda wants to revenge for her brother by following Norman, but Norman captures her. Leon saves her from Norman and moves to a different apartment. However, Norman wants to kill Leon by surrounding him with a large team of special force. Leon gives Mathilda his Chinese evergreen and lets her to escape through the air tunnel while promising her that he will survive. This is clearly not true, because as the film goes, Leon will dead at the end. Without question, Norman ambushes Leon while Leon is escaping out of the building, but Leon triggers grenades on his body to kill Norman as well.

Love, solitude, life, adventure, protection
This film is a love story about the adventure of a solitary professional hitman trying to protect a girl, whose family murdered by a corrupted DEA agent, with their different experience of life.

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