Léon (also known as The Professional and Léon: The Professional) is a French 1994 dramatic crime film written and directed by French director Luc Besson. It stars Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and a young Natalie Portman in her first starring role.

Production

Léon is to some extent an expansion of an idea in Besson’s earlier film, Nikita (1990), in which Jean Reno played a similar character named Victor. Besson described Léon as “Now maybe Jean is playing the American cousin of Victor. This time he’s more human.”

While most of the interior footage was shot in France, the rest of the film was shot on location in New York City.

Leon and Matilda’s original apartment building used two locations. The exterior entrance is the door next to St. Miriam Grocery at 71 East 97th Street

Tony’s restaurant (Guido’s Restaurant in real life), was located in the Supreme Macaroni Co. building at 511 Ninth Avenue. The building was demolished in 2007 to make way for a condo/hotel complex.

Long version

There is also a long version of the film, referred to as “international version” or “version intégrale”. It is sometimes called the “Director’s Cut” but Besson refers to the original version as the Director’s Cut and the new version as “The Long Version”. The name “international version” comes from the fact that only this version was released in Japan.

It has approximately 23 minutes of additional footage that was removed from the original release. The additional material is found in the film’s second act, and it depicts more of the interactions and relationship between Léon and Mathilda. In one scene, Mathilda plays Russian Roulette to try to get Léon to admit he loves her; in another, she openly asks him to be her first lover, but he refuses, although they do share a bed. In another scene he teaches Mathilda the “Ring Trick” which involves knocking on peoples door and breaking the chain after the occupant opens the door, and in the advent of the occupant fighting back or refuses to open, and becomes violent he throws a grenade, when he does he shows Mathilda the pin. There is also a detailed scene in which Leon teaches Mathilda where to shoot the target, demonstrating on a cocaine dealer and maker, and that you should never shoot them in the face, because doing so would render identification impossible. After he kills the dealer Mathilda burns all the drugs using lighter fluid. He also refers to a past romantic relationship he once had that ended in tragedy that started his career as a hitman. Most of the other material in the longer cut involves Mathilda accompanying Léon on several of his hits, to further her training.

The “version longue” of Léon was shown in 1996 in French cinemas (followed by VHS), and released – as “version intégrale” – on LaserDisc and later Region 2 DVD in Japan. It appeared as the “international version” on Region 1 DVD in North America in 2000, and was re-issued in 2005.