The film stars Anne Parillaud as the title character, a criminal who is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering policemen during an armed pharmacy robbery.

[4] Janet Maslin wrote in The New York Times: "La Femme Nikita combines hip violence, punk anomie, lavish settings and an old-fashioned paean to the power of love.

"[5] It was remade as Black Cat (1991) in Hong Kong, Point of No Return (1993) in Hollywood, and in Bollywood as Kartoos (1999).

Nikita is a nihilistic teenage junkie and tomboy who commits her life to anarchy, drugs, and violence.

She awakens in a nondescript room, where a well-dressed, hard-looking man named Bob tells her that, although officially dead and buried, she is in the custody of a shadowy government agency known as "the Centre" (possibly part of the DGSE).

Nikita's initial mission, killing a foreign diplomat in a crowded restaurant and escaping from his well-armed bodyguards to the Centre, doubles as the final test in her training.

He tells stories about "Marie"'s imaginary childhood and gives the couple tickets for a trip to Venice, purportedly as an engagement gift.

Back in Paris, the Centre sends in Victor "The Cleaner", a ruthless operative, to salvage the mission and destroy all the evidence of the foul-up.

Marco reveals that he has discovered Nikita's secret life, and, concerned over how her activities are affecting her psychologically, persuades her to disappear.

Do it.’ ”[3] During the film production, Besson and Parillaud, then a couple and parents to their young daughter, Juliette, lived apart.

[3] Besson explained: “I needed to love the character of Nikita in order to shoot,” he says, “and to come back to the same girl at night and ask her to pass the salt breaks all the magic.

Every morning, it was such a pleasure to see her and film her.”[3] Based on the success of Le Grand Bleu, Gaumont agreed to finance Nikita without having seen a script.

Nikita cost 39 million francs to make, and was a co-production between Besson's company Les Films du Loup, Gaumont, and Cecchi Gori Group Tiger Cinematographica.

[10] Following the premiere, the film was distributed to 15 towns in France, with Besson to promote it and have discussions with audiences after the screenings.

[8] Other cast and crew members on the tour included Éric Serra, Anne Parillaud, Jean-Hugues Anglade and occasionally Tchéky Karyo.

The Big Blue has the same problem, released in the United States as an intellectual work, and attracting the wrong audience.

[16] Speaking of the film's critical reception in France, Besson noted he would not talk to the press, saying he would want to "count on them to help me, to help me evaluate my own work".

The site's consensus states: "A zany out-of-control thriller that gives lead Anne Parillaud a big character arc and plenty of emotional room to work in".

[19] A number of critics, including Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, positively reviewed the film.

"[24] La Femme Nikita was remade in Hong Kong as the action film Black Cat directed by Stephen Shin in 1991.

[26] Daily Variety noted that between 1987 and 1993, Hollywood remade seventeen contemporary French films, which had been released in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s.

[27] A Canadian TV series based on the film, titled La Femme Nikita, premiered in 1997.