Lupin the IIIrd: Chikemuri no Ishikawa Goemon

The movie's main strengths are the animation, then the music, then the art. The story is its main flaw.

Story-wise, even as a self-contained story, it lacks too much substance. You follow a triangle situation between 3 groups, but most of the fundamental motive(s) of the characters throughout the movie are never explained. You just have to assume a lot of what's going on and there are some script flips that also don't make too much sense, makes you go "why is he doing that all of the sudden?".

Combat-wise, the animation is fluid. Great detail on the fights. It's enhanced by the camera work such as ... slow motion, camera shaking, change of angles, x-rays and wind effects. There's a great focus on technique as well; precise moves with several close-up shots, showing you movement of the skin, etc.

Character-wise, the characters are very charicatural (in a good way). The thieves are your classical nonchalent/funky guys, the main bad guy is an all-American terminator alpha male butcher who seemingly isn't phased by anything. The samurai is very inclined on his honor and so forth.

Music-wise, it has a nice Western/Bond-like OST, especially with the detective/thriller undertone the story has.

Art-wise, the art has that American/Boondocks-ish feel to it. One complaint for me is that there's a little too much CGI. The CGI, for CGI standard, is good, but I can't stand CGI at all, no matter how high quality it is. The CGI is usually applied to fire and water in this case.

Overall, it feels like a somewhat pointless episodic shortfilm but with great art and combat. It was fairly enjoyable.

It feels really awkward to call this a movie when it seems to be a 1 hour special. There are a lot of things not explained in the movie, like the reason behind Hawk coming after Lupin and the gang, why Lupin and the gang were presumed dead according to the Inspector, and why the police didn't want the Inspector do continue his search. The movie is also split into 2 parts for some reason, and it really felt like it could've used a 3rd part to wrap up all the story lines that ended up being left on the workshop floor.
The animation and more ... serious, gory style is where the movie gets most of the points from this rating, but that alone cant carry a movie; 5/10 decent watch for the action.

Before I explain why the worst score possible, I want to say a few things. I've watched the entire Lupin III's collection: every episode, every movie, every OVA and every special. Lupin III is a franchise that exists for over 50 years and every time a new adventure is announced, I get excited about it and hope that this legendary series continues to get more attention and love in the future.

A 1/10 is the worst score possible on this website and I'll now explain why in my opinion is a fai score for this film.


Animation: the visuals are my least favourite from all ... the different animation styles that Lupin III has seen over 50 years. I like the detailed backgrounds but I don't like the "rough, dark" appearance of the main cast.


Sound:
1) the soundtrack does not include jazz or "samurai" songs that are part of the musical legacy of Lupin III.
2) the iconic Lupin III theme song is nowhere to be found. You may argue that because this special is more focused on Goemon, it's something that made sense to leave out of the film but I don't agree with that at all. The movie is titled "Lupin III" and is part of the franchise. Goemon himself is a main character in the franchise. It only makes sense for the trademark instrumental to be there.


Story and characters:
1) the only characters that act as themselves are Jigen and Fujiko. The rest of the cast seems to have either nothing or very little with the versions of themselves that have existed for 50 years. Lupin doesn't act as his "happy-totsan-love-me-Fujiko" ways once throughout the film; Zenigata is overly-serious and shows no emotion whatsoever about the possibility of chasing/arresting Lupin and his buddies. Goemon does the unthinkable and this will be a SPOILER!!!!! - Goemon dismantled his Zantetsuken to get a new guard and handle. There's no way in flipping hell that Goemon would do this. Every single individual that has watched Goemon for at least 5 minutes understands how Goemon feels about his sword. This sword is sacred and is more important to him than his own safety. And then of course Goemon gets stupidly injured by bullets that he's been able to easily dodge or cut for 50 years and of course at the end Zenigata doesn't acknowledge him as part of the Lupin III gang and warns him not to trouble his police work. It's been 50 years worth of thefts and other shenanigans for Goemon with Lupin and the rest but for some stupid reason, someone thought it would make sense for Zenigata to have a case of sudden memory loss about Goemon's involvement in those events.
2) SPOILER: I don't know where to put this but to have Goemon challenge a baby Megalodon was ridiculous and absurd.


Regardless if you read the spoilers above or not, the main reason why I gave a 1/10 to this movie is because of this: I sat down and chose to watch this movie because it's part of the Lupin III franchise. That's what I expected. It doesn't sound like Lupin III (soundtrack) and the characters don't act like the characters from Lupin III. If something takes the name of Lupin III and/or its characters I demand to get the same enjoyment and experience and unfortunately this was a waste of 1 hour of my time that just made me feel that Monkey Punch's creation was disgraced by this rubbish.