Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro

Original Title: ルパン三世 カリオストロの城
Romanized: Rupan Sansei: Cariosutoro no Shiro
Literal:

Plot Synopsis

Lupin III is the greatest thief the world has ever known. Accompanied by his trusted friend Jigen, a peerless gunman, and with the occasional help of the samurai Goemon, no heist is too great.

But after pulling off a casino robbery whose haul consists entirely of counterfeit bills, Lupin decides that his next job will be to track these legendary "Goat Bills" to their source--the tiny country of Cagliostro. Before long Lupin and friends are involved in a twisted scheme by the Count of Cagliostro to marry himself to the beautiful princess Clarise. With the Count's army of henchmen, a castle full of traps, and a princess locked in a tower, it's going to take every trick in Lupin's bag to pull off this caper.

Quick Review

Rating: 4.5 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2006-09-12

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro is a marvelous film with enough whimsical action, playful adventure, and satisfying plot to appeal to viewers of almost any age, so long as they've got a little of that youthful rogue in spirit. With Miyazaki's characteristic magic touch, the film is a feast of lush European scenery, relentless sequences of death-defying action, and a hint of touching nostalgia. Really the only complaint you could make is that as a Lupin III film, it's rather too clean--the gadgets, action, and cat-burglary are there in spades, but Miyazaki's Lupin just isn't as smarmy and randy as the character is supposed to be.

Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro is a wonderful, action-packed adventure with enough substance and characterization to appeal to both the young and the young at heart.

US DVD Review

Manga's new Special Edition DVD is quite a production, and a definite step up from their older DVD release, and seems to be modeled after Disney's Miyazaki DVD series (even the box design is similar)--a good thing, since those are spectacular productions. It comes on a two-sided disc (instead of two discs), with the feature on one side and a second side full of bonus materials: A complete set of storyboards set to the soundtrack, an interview with the animation director, and trailers.

As for the feature itself, for a film from the late '70s, it's impressive: Anamorphic widescreen with rich colors, almost no visible dust or scratches on the print, and no reel-change marks, either (although there is a bit of a black border around the edge, reducing the size of the picture a bit on a widescreen TV). I have two small nitpicks, however. One, although the transfer appears to be progressive "film style," it was obviously transferred from an interlaced source, because occasional frames show interlacing. The second is the opening sequence, which sadly replaces the animated scenes during the credits with still frames; that was unfortunate, since the sequence is so beautiful. The film is otherwise untouched.

Languages consist of the original Japanese mono track (it's an old movie, but at least it's crisp), Manga's English dub in Dolby 5.1 or 2.0, as well as one-channel dub tracks in French and Spanish. There is a track of English subtitles which are translated quite accurately from the Japanese, rather than the dub script.

The only other oddity of the Special Edition is that the color of the box art seems to be off--it looks very "aged," and far less vibrant than the video itself.

Content Guide

About as clean as a Lupin III movie can get. There is quite a bit of fighting, but despite all the guns and swords it is largely bloodless and not at all hard-hitting.

Violence: 2 - A lot of fighting, but almost no blood or death.

Nudity: 1 - Lupin almost loses his boxers at one point, if that even counts.

Sex/Mature Themes: 0 - There are vague hints at mature themes, but that's all.

Language: 1 - Largely clean.

Notes and Trivia

The Lupin III franchise is based on a series of comic books begun in the late 1960s by the pseudonymously-named Monkey Punch. The original Lupin comics were James Bond-style capers full of lurid sex and violence, but most of the animated incarnations since have been at least somewhat cleaner.

The character of Lupin III is loosely based on Arsene Lupin, a fictional gentleman thief popularized in a series of French-language novels by Maurice Leblanc, published between about 1907 and 1939. He was a sort of roguish French counterpart to Sherlock Holmes, and has since appeared in a number of movies and unofficial books. Lupin III is, theoretically, the grandson of the original.

Apparently trademark issues with the estate that owns the original character initially prevented release of most Lupin III movies in the US under that title; when Streamline translated The Castle of Cagliostro years ago, they dubbed the main character's name as "Wolf," and later AnimEigo released two films as "Rupan III" to avoid the same spelling.

The other characters are also based on (or parodies of) various famous Japanese characters; Inspector Zenigata, for example, is based on the fictional detective Zenigata Heiji, created in a series of early 20th century novels by Kodou Nomura and later popularized in a long-running TV series.

Availability

Available in the US from Manga Video on multi-lingual DVD Special Edition. Was previously available from Manga on bilingual DVD with less features. Prior to that, a dubbed version was available on VHS from Streamline Pictures.

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