Sixth Lupin movie post
Jul. 24th, 2011 02:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tilly_stratfordWhooa there you go, the four final Lupin movies!
Tokyo Crisis (TV special, 1998)
Sure the art doesn't look amazing, the animation's occasionally somewhat lacking, but this is an incredibly fun little romp! There's a gigantic amusement park, evil scientists, ninjas, but most of all there is ZENIGATA.
Admittedly his intelligence varies a bit throughout the story, but of all the movies, this is definitely one of the Inspector's better outings. He's uncommonly three-dimensional for once, and gets a dozen rather nice character moments; Seeing him trying to pick himself up after being relieved of duty (complete with "Hand over your badge" scene of course) is definitely a treat, but I also loved Zenigata's relationship with his new sidekick, Maria (she's a purple-haired psychic and STILL comes across as one of the Inspector's better sidekicks). Is romance in the air? You'll have to see for yourself, but be prepared to make unexpected high-pitched noises towards the end.
Not forgetting a wonderful scene between Zenigata and Lupin as they're both locked up after a bit of anarchy.
True to form these kind of quiet scenes between Lupin and Zenigata - where they have a chance to just talk, nemesis to nemesis - are absolutely lovely.
So yes, Tokyo Crisis is sort of Zenigata's movie.
The jutte is great. The jutte is good.
Not that the other main characters don't make quite a show too! We get an uncommonly hilarious subplot starring Jigen and Goemon. It's very rare to see them doing straight-up comedy but by golly it works (at one point I had to pause the movie because I was laughing so hard)! Oh Goemon, even without knowing the backstory of how you lost your sword your story arc is hilarious.
The villains aren't terribly memorable, but which Lupin villains ever are?
All in all a funny and entertaining diamond in the rough, as TV specials go!
Missed By A Dollar (TV special, 2000)
I never expect much from these specials from the nineties and early oughties, so maybe that's why I've been so pleasantly surprised this time. Missed By A Dollar (so titled because the plot is kickstarted when Lupin is outbid at an auction) is a bit confusing at times - not helped by the (I assume) botched fansub I had, and also by how it's definitely the darkest Lupin movie I've seen. And not Island-of-Assassins dark, where there's blood and death everywhere. There are scenes where I ACTUALLY CAN'T SEE SHIT.
Okay who forgot to pay the electricity bill?
So yes, the villain's plot is kind of confusing, the higher-grade mooks are kind of interchangeable and not very memorable, Goemon's subplot was annoying at first but got gradually better, and Zenigata, while present, has pretty much no involvement in the actual plot...
But still, this movie actually TRIES TO ADD NEW ELEMENTS INTO THE MIX, and that's why I regard it as an enjoyable little Lupin film.
For one: Lupin "dies". Yeah sure he has a habit of seemingly dying, he does that all the time, but this time it seems like the writers wanted to explore that further. There's not just Lupin getting shot, there's even Lupin's dead body and the funeral (Did I choke up a bit at Zenigata grabbing hold of Jigen's sleeve and begging him to say that it was all staged to trick him? ...Maybe.). Lupin actually remains dead for something like a full ten minutes in the second act of the movie, I think that's a record! There's also several small subplots - Jigen losing his gun, Zenigata resigning from InterPol - that not only reach their own conclusions, but which have subtle little effects on the main plot!
Secondly, the main villain, the big bad, is a woman. An intelligent businesswoman. Not batshit crazy, not a man in drag, not grotesquely masculine, not carrying gimmicky weapons - just a businesswoman who wants more money and realizes Lupin happens to be in the way. Lupin and the lady regard each other as erstwhile foes, and seeing them go head to head in a battle of wits is actually very enjoyable and fresh. If you haven't guessed, WE DON'T USUALLY GET THESE KINDS OF VILLAINS IN THIS FRANCHISE. IT'S NICE.
Speaking of the ladies in this movie, another unexpected detail that came up was that at the beginning of the movie Lupin already has a kinda-sorta girlfriend, who sticks around for the entirety of the movie (well in small scenes here and there), and it's not Fujiko. There's pretty much a romantic interest in every Lupin movie, but Lupin always meets the lady in question in the first act - whereas this movie just goes HELLO WELCOME TO THE SHOW HERE'S A CAR CHASE AND BY THE WAY THIS IS SANDY, SHE'S AN AMERICAN NIGHT CLUB SINGER AND SHE'S IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH LUPIN. FINE, NOW LET'S GET ON WITH THE STORY.
Sure, Sandy has no character development and only functions as a way to put even more Yuji Ohno-penned ballads in the movie, but I liked that for once a special tried to do without a romantic subplot, also allowing Lupin to do something other than going gaga every time someone with a vagina walked past him. Pretty cool.
So sure, not a perfect movie, but an acceptable way to spend a couple of hours. (It also had some very nice car chases, I wanted to GIF but was foiled by a corrupted video file).
Dragon of Doom (TV special, 1994)
...Okay, so this is another one of those specials that are just so completely forgettable, I... can hardly remember a thing about it. There was a dragon statue on the Titanic and Lupin was forced to dive for it. And that's it. I know I told Leaper at some point that I liked Goemon's part in the movie, but I can't even remember what that was now. Something about a childhood friend. And fighting ninjas in a kabuki theatre!
AW YEAH.
Excuse me while I do some cursory research into the plot.
...Okay, that didn't really tell me anything I didn't know. Oh, it's the one where Jigen's obsessed with crossword puzzles. And there's the ultra stupid rubber duckie boat, yes.
Okay, so even if there weren't things that made me furious and had me shouting abuse at the TV screen (though the duck boat came pretty close), if I forget what the plot was about the moment the credits begin YOU DID NOT MADE A GOOD MOVIE. Jeez this thing was forgettable. Had some nice animation though.
Oh and Jigen had a grenade launcher. That was pretty sweet.
His name is Jigen Daisuke but you might as well
call him The Cavalry 'cos he's here to SAVE YOUR ASS.
Yeah, the only thing that pushes this special so far up on this list is the good animation and the nice action scenes.
The Secret of Twilight Gemini (TV special, 1996)
Imagine trying to make a movie that takes place in Morocco when all you know about North Africa comes from The Raiders of the Lost Ark and Casablanca. That is to say, you don't know much. And you just decide to invent the rest, rather than doing even the most cursory research. That's The Secret of Twilight Gemini for you.
NOT that I didn't get a little bit too excited about seeing Casablanca references in a Lupin movie - though to my disappointment, a character referred to as Lorre-sama turned out to be a female bellydancer, not a chubby little Austrian guy. Aw.
Anyway, this is not a good movie. If you compare the good things against the bad, I believe the "bad" list will be the longest. But the good things are pretty memorable, and as I suffer from Tilly-vision - forgetting about the weak points because of my love for the good bits - I was pretty entertained by this movie.
The only thing I knew going in was that it's definitely considered to be the raunchiest of all the Lupin movies - which meant, well, more naked boobs, but also a refreshingly different characterization of Fujiko. I mean, sexual themes has always been a part of the Lupin franchise - the original manga was downright pornographic at times, and while all that was toned down for the anime, it's always remained a part of the main character (the only difference being that in the manga he'd have tons of sex, while anime-Lupin is eternally sexually frustrated).
What was I driving at? Yes - the sex has always been one-sided, with Lupin being the aggressor and the female being passive or even downright unwilling. In Twilight Gemini, Fujiko appears to be just as interested in sex as he is (albeit with an agenda), and I gotta say - the moment this show hinted at sex between two willing participants as opposed to male-against-female even I thought it was kinda... hot. Come on, two sexy thieves engaging in illicit relations in the archive room in a police station? That's hot.
Moving on from the sex, Zenigata gets to pull one of his more impressive police assaults on Lupin in opening sequence, and also gets an initially interesting subplot concerning his supportive new commissioner - but of course Zenigata can never have anything nice and it all turns to shit soon enough.
And as a final enjoyable thing, I liked Lupin's new wardrobe for the movie. White linen suits are so classy.
Moving on to the bad stuff; Jigen and Goemon are hardly in the movie at all, and have next to no involvement in the main plot. Particularly with Jigen you feel like the writers were struggling coming up with ways to involve him. Goemon is in something like two short scenes, but those are at least memorable.
AND EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH MOTORCYCLES.
The romantic interest - besides Fujiko - is bland and utterly forgettable - and furthermore considering how the plot revolves around her Moroccan ethnicity, is the blondest, palest character in the movie.
The villain... Oh gosh. Thinking of TV specials like Angel Tactics and Harimao's Treasure below, I'm well aware of the fact that certain... views on homosexuality, transvestitism and transgenderism have on occasion reared their ugly heads, but none of them leave quite as bad a taste in my mouth as the handling of the villain in this movie, a gay transvestite. Well, he's not very well written - there's something about a past history with Goemon that's never quite explained. But EVERY TIME he goes up against Lupin, it's like Lupin feels the need to spend the next five minutes talking about how disgusting he thinks gays are.
Hell, even the TV show back in the seventies was more progressive on gay issues than this. And even if the more recent specials like Angel Tactics portray transvestitism as something unnatural and gimmicky (and only belonging to the villains), at least these days they know better than to have their protagonist, the good guy, deride it like that.
So yes, Twilight Gemini. On occasion boring and offensive, but with some good bits thrown in there.
The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure (TV special, 1995)
To get the fabled but vaguely described treasure of Harimao Lupin has to travel all over the world to find three small statues. Well, all over the world as in Russia, London, Amsterdam and... somewhere in South Africa?
Let's just get the bad things out of the way. Well, some of them.
One: Zenigata. Holy fuck, Zenigata. I'd heard tales of how incredibly, embarrassingly, horribly stupid Zenigata was in this movie. I mean, GEEZ. Ramen in the Eurotunnel indeed. I know Zenigata's level of intelligence will forever fluctuate from special to special - in one he's the highly intelligent veteran detective that every rookie on the force fears and respects, in another he's reduced to mere comic relief as he trips over his own shoes and accidentally hits himself and wails Lupin's name. This movie, however, presents a Zenigata SO MORONIC![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
leaper182 and I were forced to imagine that we were watching Zenigata's identical, inept cousin Bob, just to combat our feelings of embarrassment. Thank you Leaper for the Zenigata Bob interpretation. The only thing that made me get through this movie.
Goemon is also terribly terribly out of character, but still nothing compared to cousin Bob there.
Furthermore, the love interest (the granddaughter of a James Bond-pastiche) might be the single most annoying love interest for Lupin yet.
The villains are Nazis, not regular Nazis but TRANSVESTITE Nazis of course. It's about as tasteful as you can imagine. But hey, first male-on-male kiss in the franchise.
I could go on about the billion little things that annoyed me, but let's face it - it's not a good movie. There were a few highlights - the initial chase sequence, Jigen doing some motorcycle stunt driving (everything's better with motorcycles!), and a cute unexpected shout-out to the mangaka and creator of Lupin III:
...But yes, definitely a bottom-tier movie.
Yup, so in less than eleven months I've seen every single Lupin III movie. And even in time for this year's TV special! (See? It won't end. It will never end.)
You know some people feel accomplished when they've finally seen every Star Trek movie? Well there aren't TWENTY-EIGHT OF THEM, like it is in the Lupin franchise (five theatrical films, twenty-two full-lenght TV specials, and one godawful OVA). Oh my goodness, so many hours of my youth misspent.
AWWW YEEEAH.
Tokyo Crisis (TV special, 1998)
Sure the art doesn't look amazing, the animation's occasionally somewhat lacking, but this is an incredibly fun little romp! There's a gigantic amusement park, evil scientists, ninjas, but most of all there is ZENIGATA.
Admittedly his intelligence varies a bit throughout the story, but of all the movies, this is definitely one of the Inspector's better outings. He's uncommonly three-dimensional for once, and gets a dozen rather nice character moments; Seeing him trying to pick himself up after being relieved of duty (complete with "Hand over your badge" scene of course) is definitely a treat, but I also loved Zenigata's relationship with his new sidekick, Maria (she's a purple-haired psychic and STILL comes across as one of the Inspector's better sidekicks). Is romance in the air? You'll have to see for yourself, but be prepared to make unexpected high-pitched noises towards the end.
Not forgetting a wonderful scene between Zenigata and Lupin as they're both locked up after a bit of anarchy.
True to form these kind of quiet scenes between Lupin and Zenigata - where they have a chance to just talk, nemesis to nemesis - are absolutely lovely.
So yes, Tokyo Crisis is sort of Zenigata's movie.
The jutte is great. The jutte is good.
Not that the other main characters don't make quite a show too! We get an uncommonly hilarious subplot starring Jigen and Goemon. It's very rare to see them doing straight-up comedy but by golly it works (at one point I had to pause the movie because I was laughing so hard)! Oh Goemon, even without knowing the backstory of how you lost your sword your story arc is hilarious.
The villains aren't terribly memorable, but which Lupin villains ever are?
All in all a funny and entertaining diamond in the rough, as TV specials go!
Missed By A Dollar (TV special, 2000)
I never expect much from these specials from the nineties and early oughties, so maybe that's why I've been so pleasantly surprised this time. Missed By A Dollar (so titled because the plot is kickstarted when Lupin is outbid at an auction) is a bit confusing at times - not helped by the (I assume) botched fansub I had, and also by how it's definitely the darkest Lupin movie I've seen. And not Island-of-Assassins dark, where there's blood and death everywhere. There are scenes where I ACTUALLY CAN'T SEE SHIT.
Okay who forgot to pay the electricity bill?
So yes, the villain's plot is kind of confusing, the higher-grade mooks are kind of interchangeable and not very memorable, Goemon's subplot was annoying at first but got gradually better, and Zenigata, while present, has pretty much no involvement in the actual plot...
But still, this movie actually TRIES TO ADD NEW ELEMENTS INTO THE MIX, and that's why I regard it as an enjoyable little Lupin film.
For one: Lupin "dies". Yeah sure he has a habit of seemingly dying, he does that all the time, but this time it seems like the writers wanted to explore that further. There's not just Lupin getting shot, there's even Lupin's dead body and the funeral (Did I choke up a bit at Zenigata grabbing hold of Jigen's sleeve and begging him to say that it was all staged to trick him? ...Maybe.). Lupin actually remains dead for something like a full ten minutes in the second act of the movie, I think that's a record! There's also several small subplots - Jigen losing his gun, Zenigata resigning from InterPol - that not only reach their own conclusions, but which have subtle little effects on the main plot!
Secondly, the main villain, the big bad, is a woman. An intelligent businesswoman. Not batshit crazy, not a man in drag, not grotesquely masculine, not carrying gimmicky weapons - just a businesswoman who wants more money and realizes Lupin happens to be in the way. Lupin and the lady regard each other as erstwhile foes, and seeing them go head to head in a battle of wits is actually very enjoyable and fresh. If you haven't guessed, WE DON'T USUALLY GET THESE KINDS OF VILLAINS IN THIS FRANCHISE. IT'S NICE.
Speaking of the ladies in this movie, another unexpected detail that came up was that at the beginning of the movie Lupin already has a kinda-sorta girlfriend, who sticks around for the entirety of the movie (well in small scenes here and there), and it's not Fujiko. There's pretty much a romantic interest in every Lupin movie, but Lupin always meets the lady in question in the first act - whereas this movie just goes HELLO WELCOME TO THE SHOW HERE'S A CAR CHASE AND BY THE WAY THIS IS SANDY, SHE'S AN AMERICAN NIGHT CLUB SINGER AND SHE'S IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH LUPIN. FINE, NOW LET'S GET ON WITH THE STORY.
Sure, Sandy has no character development and only functions as a way to put even more Yuji Ohno-penned ballads in the movie, but I liked that for once a special tried to do without a romantic subplot, also allowing Lupin to do something other than going gaga every time someone with a vagina walked past him. Pretty cool.
So sure, not a perfect movie, but an acceptable way to spend a couple of hours. (It also had some very nice car chases, I wanted to GIF but was foiled by a corrupted video file).
Dragon of Doom (TV special, 1994)
...Okay, so this is another one of those specials that are just so completely forgettable, I... can hardly remember a thing about it. There was a dragon statue on the Titanic and Lupin was forced to dive for it. And that's it. I know I told Leaper at some point that I liked Goemon's part in the movie, but I can't even remember what that was now. Something about a childhood friend. And fighting ninjas in a kabuki theatre!
AW YEAH.
Excuse me while I do some cursory research into the plot.
...Okay, that didn't really tell me anything I didn't know. Oh, it's the one where Jigen's obsessed with crossword puzzles. And there's the ultra stupid rubber duckie boat, yes.
Okay, so even if there weren't things that made me furious and had me shouting abuse at the TV screen (though the duck boat came pretty close), if I forget what the plot was about the moment the credits begin YOU DID NOT MADE A GOOD MOVIE. Jeez this thing was forgettable. Had some nice animation though.
Oh and Jigen had a grenade launcher. That was pretty sweet.
His name is Jigen Daisuke but you might as well
call him The Cavalry 'cos he's here to SAVE YOUR ASS.
Yeah, the only thing that pushes this special so far up on this list is the good animation and the nice action scenes.
The Secret of Twilight Gemini (TV special, 1996)
Imagine trying to make a movie that takes place in Morocco when all you know about North Africa comes from The Raiders of the Lost Ark and Casablanca. That is to say, you don't know much. And you just decide to invent the rest, rather than doing even the most cursory research. That's The Secret of Twilight Gemini for you.
NOT that I didn't get a little bit too excited about seeing Casablanca references in a Lupin movie - though to my disappointment, a character referred to as Lorre-sama turned out to be a female bellydancer, not a chubby little Austrian guy. Aw.
Anyway, this is not a good movie. If you compare the good things against the bad, I believe the "bad" list will be the longest. But the good things are pretty memorable, and as I suffer from Tilly-vision - forgetting about the weak points because of my love for the good bits - I was pretty entertained by this movie.
The only thing I knew going in was that it's definitely considered to be the raunchiest of all the Lupin movies - which meant, well, more naked boobs, but also a refreshingly different characterization of Fujiko. I mean, sexual themes has always been a part of the Lupin franchise - the original manga was downright pornographic at times, and while all that was toned down for the anime, it's always remained a part of the main character (the only difference being that in the manga he'd have tons of sex, while anime-Lupin is eternally sexually frustrated).
What was I driving at? Yes - the sex has always been one-sided, with Lupin being the aggressor and the female being passive or even downright unwilling. In Twilight Gemini, Fujiko appears to be just as interested in sex as he is (albeit with an agenda), and I gotta say - the moment this show hinted at sex between two willing participants as opposed to male-against-female even I thought it was kinda... hot. Come on, two sexy thieves engaging in illicit relations in the archive room in a police station? That's hot.
Moving on from the sex, Zenigata gets to pull one of his more impressive police assaults on Lupin in opening sequence, and also gets an initially interesting subplot concerning his supportive new commissioner - but of course Zenigata can never have anything nice and it all turns to shit soon enough.
And as a final enjoyable thing, I liked Lupin's new wardrobe for the movie. White linen suits are so classy.
Moving on to the bad stuff; Jigen and Goemon are hardly in the movie at all, and have next to no involvement in the main plot. Particularly with Jigen you feel like the writers were struggling coming up with ways to involve him. Goemon is in something like two short scenes, but those are at least memorable.
AND EVERYTHING IS BETTER WITH MOTORCYCLES.
The romantic interest - besides Fujiko - is bland and utterly forgettable - and furthermore considering how the plot revolves around her Moroccan ethnicity, is the blondest, palest character in the movie.
The villain... Oh gosh. Thinking of TV specials like Angel Tactics and Harimao's Treasure below, I'm well aware of the fact that certain... views on homosexuality, transvestitism and transgenderism have on occasion reared their ugly heads, but none of them leave quite as bad a taste in my mouth as the handling of the villain in this movie, a gay transvestite. Well, he's not very well written - there's something about a past history with Goemon that's never quite explained. But EVERY TIME he goes up against Lupin, it's like Lupin feels the need to spend the next five minutes talking about how disgusting he thinks gays are.
Hell, even the TV show back in the seventies was more progressive on gay issues than this. And even if the more recent specials like Angel Tactics portray transvestitism as something unnatural and gimmicky (and only belonging to the villains), at least these days they know better than to have their protagonist, the good guy, deride it like that.
So yes, Twilight Gemini. On occasion boring and offensive, but with some good bits thrown in there.
The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure (TV special, 1995)
To get the fabled but vaguely described treasure of Harimao Lupin has to travel all over the world to find three small statues. Well, all over the world as in Russia, London, Amsterdam and... somewhere in South Africa?
Let's just get the bad things out of the way. Well, some of them.
One: Zenigata. Holy fuck, Zenigata. I'd heard tales of how incredibly, embarrassingly, horribly stupid Zenigata was in this movie. I mean, GEEZ. Ramen in the Eurotunnel indeed. I know Zenigata's level of intelligence will forever fluctuate from special to special - in one he's the highly intelligent veteran detective that every rookie on the force fears and respects, in another he's reduced to mere comic relief as he trips over his own shoes and accidentally hits himself and wails Lupin's name. This movie, however, presents a Zenigata SO MORONIC
leaper182 and I were forced to imagine that we were watching Zenigata's identical, inept cousin Bob, just to combat our feelings of embarrassment. Thank you Leaper for the Zenigata Bob interpretation. The only thing that made me get through this movie.Goemon is also terribly terribly out of character, but still nothing compared to cousin Bob there.
Furthermore, the love interest (the granddaughter of a James Bond-pastiche) might be the single most annoying love interest for Lupin yet.
The villains are Nazis, not regular Nazis but TRANSVESTITE Nazis of course. It's about as tasteful as you can imagine. But hey, first male-on-male kiss in the franchise.
I could go on about the billion little things that annoyed me, but let's face it - it's not a good movie. There were a few highlights - the initial chase sequence, Jigen doing some motorcycle stunt driving (everything's better with motorcycles!), and a cute unexpected shout-out to the mangaka and creator of Lupin III:
...But yes, definitely a bottom-tier movie.
Yup, so in less than eleven months I've seen every single Lupin III movie. And even in time for this year's TV special! (See? It won't end. It will never end.)
You know some people feel accomplished when they've finally seen every Star Trek movie? Well there aren't TWENTY-EIGHT OF THEM, like it is in the Lupin franchise (five theatrical films, twenty-two full-lenght TV specials, and one godawful OVA). Oh my goodness, so many hours of my youth misspent.
AWWW YEEEAH.
