Nikita

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This article is about the film entitled Nikita a.k.a. La Femme Nikita. For other uses, see Nikita (disambiguation).

Nikita
original film poster
Directed by	Luc Besson
Produced by	Patrice Ledoux (uncredited)
Written by	Luc Besson
Starring	Anne Parillaud Jean-Hugues Anglade Tchéky Karyo
Music by	Eric Serra
Distributed by	Gaumont
Release date(s)	February 21, 1990 (France)
Running time	115 min.
Language	French
IMDb profile

Nikita (re-titled La Femme Nikita in some markets) is the title of a 1990 French movie written and directed by Luc Besson.

1 Plot
2 Reception
3 Remake
4 TV series
5 Other similar show
6 Trivia
7 See also
8 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Nikita begins the film as a teenage delinquent and heroin addict who attempts to rob the pharmacy run by one of her fellow addict's parents. The heist turns into a firefight with the local police in which her friends are killed. She then kills one of the policemen in an apparent act of nihilism or vengeance. She is tried and sentenced, then apparently executed. The execution is however a fake; she has been officially buried and listed as deceased, but in reality is now in the custody of DGSE, the French equivalent of MI6. Here she is given the stark choice of either working for them as a government assassin or being executed for real. After some resistance, she opts for the former, and eventually proves to be a talented operative (her induction mission, the elimination of foreign dignitaries in an expensive restaurant, is perhaps the best set-piece sequence of the film). In due course she is allowed to leave the training centre, and begins a new life in suburbia with her boyfriend, a man she meets working at the checkout of her local supermarket (played by Jean-Hughes Anglade, the male lead from Betty Blue). Her covert career as an assassin continues, until a mission to recover documents from a foreign embassy goes spectacularly wrong.

[edit] Reception

The film received some positive reviews from critics including Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert.

[edit] Remake

In 1993, Warner Bros. remade the film in English as Point of No Return (also known as The Assassin), directed by John Badham and starring Bridget Fonda in the title role of "Maggie". Nikita also served as inspiration for the 1991 Hong Kong action picture Black Cat, which closely followed the original film's storyline, but not enough to be called an outright remake.

[edit] TV series

The film was later spun off into the 1997 television series Nikita, which ran for five seasons on Showcase Television and USA Network and generated a sizeable cult following of its own. It was created by Joel Surnow, who later co-created 24 with fellow Nikita executive consultant Robert Cochran.

[edit] Other similar show

Noir is a 26 25-minute episodes Japanese anime which is inspired by Léon and Nikita. The story tells about two young female assassins who are teaming up together in an uneasy partnership to search answers about their mysterious pasts. The show was a success in Japan, very well-received by anime and non-anime fans alike. It has been broadcasted in France by CANALPLUS, dubbed in French, and receive similar success.

[edit] Trivia

In the accompanying DVD interviews, Besson specifies that Nikita was a breakout movie for him, as he divides his career into pre-Nikita and post-Nikita phases.
Ada Wong of the Resident Evil series, is based on Nikita.