The Castle of Cagliostro (1979)
The Cast
David Hayter .... Arsene Lupin III
Ivan Buckley .... Daisuke Jigen
Richard Epcar .... Ishikawa Goemon XIII
Dorothy Elias-Fahn .... Fujiko Mine
Dougray Grant .... Inspector Keibu Zenigata
Kirk Thornton .... Count Cagliostro
Bridget Hoffman .... Lady Clarisse d'Cagliostro
For those of you that aren't aware, I work in a store that specializes in mass market music and DVDs. I'm the receiver at my store, which means that pretty much every piece of product that we're selling has been touched or looked at by me. Most times things just blur by me, things I've seen come through the store a dozen times or more. Occasionally I'll double-take when I'm receiving something, and I'll read the back of the DVD case or whatever, make mental notes that sort of thing. Well a few months back - just before the hellish Christmas season started - I noticed a DVD that on first glance looked amazingly similar to all the Studio Ghibli releases that Disney have been releasing over the past few years. Since I've become quite the fan of Hayao Miyazaki's films since I first saw Spirited Away, I decided that I'd take a chance on one of his earlier works that I'd never heard of: The Castle of Cagliostro.
This is the second movie to chronicle the adventures of Lupin III, adapted from the manga and anime series about the master thief. The movie starts off with a bang, with Lupin and his partner Jigen escaping from a casino that they've just robbed. Once they've made their getaway, Lupin realises that the money is all near-perfect counterfeits and therefore, worthless. Almost immediately he decides to search out the plates used for creating the fake currency and steal them because the value of those plates would be much higher. Or perhaps just because he's Lupin III, master thief who steals whatever he wants whenever he wants.
The Lupin III character is quite entertaining, coming across like a mix between James Bond, Thomas Crown and Fletch. Fletch from the Gregory Mcdonald crime novels, not the Chevy Chase Fletch movie which pales in comparison, nor the possibly-soon-to-be-made Zach Braff (ugh) Fletch Won movie. The literary Fletch is a wise-ass, but he tempers that with his considerable wits and investigative skills, which is pretty similar to Lupin III's abilities in stealing priceless objects.
Even though this movie is pretty much as old as I am, the animation techniques still look better than most of the cookie-cutter CGI animated films coming out these days. Miyazaki tends to let a scene breathe, taking time to set mood and explore the lush landscape, or just have one of the characters performing a very simple everyday task. Grounding the film in a reality close to the real world makes all the amazing things that Lupin III pulls off throughout the movie even more impressive. Much of the film plays without a score behind it, making the environments the characters find themselves in feel all the more real.
The only downside to the movie would be if you had no idea whatsoever about the Lupin III magna series. Which pretty much describes me. Sitting there watching the movie, I had the feeling that there were years and years of back story behind the characters, that each of them had differing reasons for helping Lupin out with his dangerous heists. Don't let that fact discourage you from watching this film if you ever get the chance. It's a wonderful adventure movie that has influenced many other movies throughout popular culture, Raiders of the Lost Ark probably being the most obvious.
4 / 5