castle of cagliostro

what's not to love about lupin the third?
he's seriously my favourite manga/anime character.
in fact his whole crew is great.

the gang:

lupin III

unofficial grandson of the literary character, lupin carries on the title of the "gentleman thief". generally pretty goofy, but deep down serious and brilliant. he does however turn into a total fool around women.

jigen

jigen is the chain smoking, wisecracking, cynical gun man, and best friend of lupin. he's usually the voice of reason, well what little there is to be had in these stories. he seems to have fallen out of some film noir, and is by far my favourite character.

goemon

mystical samurai for hire and descendant of a japanese folk hero. i say mystical because he owns a blade that would put hattori hanzō to shame. he's the most silent and serious of the group.

fujiko

because where would we be without our femme fatale? fujiko is lupin's kryptonite. she inevitably backstabs the rest of the gang, it's always just a matter of time. not that she hasn't saved their goofy asses a few times. she's just driven by greed.

ah yes, and let us not forget

inspector gadget zenigata

the tenacious and buffoonish agent of interpol that always trying to arrest our hero. despite being on different sides of the law, lupin and zenigata actually do admire and care about eachother.


now on to the review....

i've always felt the lupin movies were fairly odd, the manga's were dark, but not without their humour, and the anime series were almost entirely comical. the movies always seem to be inbetween, lots of goofy stuff mixed in with the more dark and serious. there's usually a lot more sci-fi elements in the movies as well.

the plot of this movie deals with lupin searching for the source of counterfeit money that he ran into in one of his latest heists. thus we get drawn into a the drama of a cagliostros, and a secret of lupin's past. it's pretty standard as far as lupin movies go, however considering this was the most acclaimed of the movies, it likely became the mold for the rest of follow. i liked it, it wasn't anything amazing, however it was far from bad.
it's hard for me to not like anything involving lupin though.

i mean, how can you not like someone with such an awesome theme?

four out of five

imdb