Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro is the first of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer/director

Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki, perhaps best known for his work with Studio Ghibli, has gained popularity around the world for his creative and imaginative animated feature films. While they were originally released in Japanese, all of them have been dubbed into English with prominent voice actors and Hollywood stars. For the next several weeks, I’ll be reviewing the English-dub versions of each of Miyazaki’s 11 films as writer and director.

Last week, I tackled The Wind Rises (2013).

This week: Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979).

Synopsis: After robbing a casino, criminal mastermind Lupin (called Wolf) gets the bright idea to take over a very successful counterfeiting operation, which he discovers is in the tiny European country of Cagliostro. Once there, Wolf and his partners-in-crime stumble upon the Count of Cagliostro’s plot to marry the country’s princess and unite the two branches of their family to reveal a long-hidden treasure. Wolf decides to do whatever it takes to help the princess escape the count… and maybe stumble into the treasure along the way.

Spoiler-free review: This was the last movie in this Miyazaki series that I hadn’t watched previously, and — now that I’ve seen his all his films — I can say that this is definitely his worst one. The animation is rough and looks very dated. Plus, unlike his other films, this one is the most ‘anime,’ as everything feels exaggerated and people constantly defy the laws of physics. I was so disappointed with the movie on the first go-around, but felt like it wasn’t fair to condemn it on a single outing, and so watched it again. (It’s on Netflix, so it’s very accessible for me.) Once I realized I was holding this movie to too high of a standard — as it is from 1979 and it’s Miyazaki’s directorial debut — it was a little more fun to watch. The plot has some good heist elements to it, and I thought the final confrontation in the film was set up well. But, compared to what Disney and Don Bluth were doing at this time, or shortly thereafter, this movie doesn’t stand out. Ultimately, this is one Miyazaki movie you can skip.

Letter grade: C or C-

Full review and critique: (Warning: here be spoilers!)

So, something that I believe holds this movie back from being better is that it’s a standalone movie within the Lupin III franchise. The anime TV show Lupin III had various iterations of TV shows and movies throughout the ’70s and early ’80s, with Miyazaki directly 15 episodes of the initial TV series. When The Castle of Cagliostro premiered while the second iteration of the TV series was in its full swing, many people at the time felt that this movie’s version of Wolf was much more chivalrous and less nefarious than his TV counterpart.

Because I’ve never seen anything else within the Lupin III franchise, I can only approach it as a standalone movie. But, from my knowledge of other anime franchises, I can clearly see how — like other anime movies — nothing in this has any real bearing on the franchise going forward. Yes, in most anime franchises, the movies are usually considered ‘canon’; but the writers typically make the movies a standalone adventure. That way, if you only watched the TV show and skipped the movie, you won’t be missing out on anything.

The Dragonball Z movies are good examples of this. The villains are almost always standalone villains that have never been seen before and will never be mentioned again. Even though Broly has been seen in several movies, he’s never been seen or mentioned in the show. And, when TV shows do want to use elements from the movies, as was the case with Dragonball Super and Boruto, they simply re-do the entire movie as episodes of the show. Anime movies also use convenient plot points, such as erased memories, to make sure the movie remains a standalone adventure within the franchise. One instance that stands out in my mind is the fourth Naruto: Shippuden movie, where Naruto travels back in time and meets his dad (who died the day Naruto was born). But, of course, since having Naruto meet his dad like this would definitely impact the series going forward, the movie hand-waves some amnesia, so that Naruto will forget what happened and the story can remain self-contained within the movie.

Anyway, the point is that if this weren’t an anime movie with a standalone adventure for Wolf and his gang, it might be a better movie. But, Wolf has to leave Cagliostro; his temporary team-up with Inspector Zenigata has to come to an end; and Wolf has to run off, leaving Zenigata to chase after him once again. If Wolf stayed in Cagliostro or married the princess or stayed friends with Zenigata or even was imprisoned, it would make the movie more compelling. But, instead, the last 5-10 minutes are spent neatly putting everything right back where it was — at least for the franchise’s main characters. Just like in the Naruto: Shippuden movie, Wolf — despite being so determined to rescue the princess throughout the film and describing himself as her ‘knight in shining armor’ — all of a sudden decides that he’s not in love with her and only looks on her as a big brother. That way, he can still look heroic to the audience while also not looking too bad for leaving her behind and going off to commit crimes once again. If Wolf really had only felt toward her like an older brother would, it should’ve been clearer earlier in the film, instead of being slapdashed onto the very end of the film.

So, while there was a lot about this movie that I believe deserves criticism, there are some things to enjoy.

There a couple of funny scenes and gags; I appreciated that the film gives you a good idea of who everyone is and what their shared histories are without it feeling clunky or shoehorned in; and I liked the set up for the wedding and the reveal of Wolf’s plan and how he infiltrated everything. One the second viewing, I appreciated the little pieces of foreshadowing as to the treasure’s location/reveal mechanism; and overall, the voice cast does a fine job, and the plot in itself isn’t bad. It’s just that — without any real stakes — I’m not invested in it like I should be. I don’t follow the franchise, so I don’t already care about the characters like many viewing this back in 1979 probably would’ve. Thus, the movie doesn’t really need to try to get people like me to care because most of the audience  already does.

In any case, I enjoyed the crime/heist elements of it, along with tastes of other genres and archetypes (like the samurai) and some other smaller aspects of the film. But, on the whole, it’s really a giant letdown compared to the reputation Miyazaki has earned in writing and producing quality animated films. Still, it is interesting to see how he get his start.

Next week: Ponyo (2008).