Lupin Iii The Castle Of Cagliostro Review

[Octavis Marquez]

Danieldid you know about this fan created commentary track for Cagliostro?

-iii-castle-of-cagliostro.html

I've heard that's it's quite informative although I haven't yet listened to it myself.

The original theatrical release in Japan occurred on 15 December 1979, distributed by Toho. In North America, it was screened at various festivals in the early 1980s, while a heavily edited and shortened version became available in the form of an arcade LaserDisc video game, Cliff Hanger (1983), combined with footage from the previous Lupin III film, The Mystery of Mamo (1978). The Castle of Cagliostro eventually made its American theatrical debut on 3 April 1991, with the home release following in October 1992. This first theatrical dub was produced by Streamline Pictures and released on home video the following year. A new dubbed version was produced by Manga Entertainment in 2000 and has had several releases.

Despite initially underperforming at the box office, The Castle of Cagliostro has garnered high praise, with critics and historians noting the film's influence on Miyazaki's later works, becoming the most popular and well-regarded entry in the entire Lupin III franchise, and has since been recognised as a cult film. However, some have disapproved of its depiction of Lupin as a gallant hero instead of his original persona as a ruthless criminal. The film has served as a major influence on animators and directors worldwide, such as Pixar director John Lasseter and several Disney films, including titles of the Disney Renaissance. The Japanese computer animated film Lupin III: The First (2019) also has a plot structure loosely modelled after The Castle of Cagliostro.

In 1968, master thief Lupin III and his colleague, Daisuke Jigen, flee the Monte Carlo Casino with huge quantities of stolen money, but as they celebrate their latest heist, Lupin recognizes the bills as distinctively high-quality counterfeits.[a] Deciding to seek out the source, they head to the Grand Duchy of Cagliostro, the alleged wellspring of the counterfeits.

Shortly after arriving, the two are passed by a young woman being chased by a group of armed thugs. They rescue the young woman, but in the ensuing mayhem Lupin is knocked unconscious and the woman gets captured, but she leaves him a signet ring. After seeing the ring, Lupin recognizes the woman as Clarisse, the princess of Cagliostro, who will soon be married to Count Cagliostro, the country's regent. The Count's arranged marriage will cement his power and recover the fabled ancient treasure of Cagliostro, for which he needs both his and Clarisse's ancestral rings.

Lupin encounters Zenigata, and they form a pact to help each other escape. After overpowering the assassins, they escape into a room full of printing presses, the source of the counterfeits which Cagliostro has used throughout history to form a global shadow empire. Zenigata wants to collect evidence, but Lupin points out they must escape the castle first. They start a fire as a distraction and steal the Count's autogyro, but as they attempt to rescue Clarisse, Lupin is seriously wounded. Clarisse offers the ring to the Count in exchange for Lupin's life, but after securing the ring, the Count's attempt at betrayal is foiled when Fujiko's actions allow her, Lupin, and Zenigata to flee. As Lupin recovers from his injuries, Zenigata tries convincing his superiors at Interpol to prosecute the Count for counterfeiting, but fearing political repercussions, they halt the investigation and remove him from the case. Lupin intends to stop the wedding and rescue the princess, revealing to his companions that ten years earlier she had saved his life during his unsuccessful first attempt to find the treasure of Cagliostro. Fujiko tips off Lupin regarding how to sneak into the castle, and forms a plan with Zenigata to publicly reveal the counterfeiting operation under the cover of pursuing Lupin.

Lupin III began as a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Monkey Punch. The title character, Lupin III, was inspired by (and is claimed in the series to be the grandson of) Maurice Leblanc's fictional character Arsne Lupin, a gallant and famous outlaw able to outsmart even Sherlock Holmes.[4] Lupin III is a gentleman thief and announces his intentions to steal valuable objects by sending a calling card to the owners of the desired items. The manga's popularity led to two anime series, titled Lupin III and Lupin III Part II.[4] The first film, The Mystery of Mamo, was released on 16 December 1978. Cagliostro released a year later following the financial success of that film. This is marked as the first feature-length film to be directed by Miyazaki, who had previously co-directed episodes of the first Lupin anime series with Isao Takahata. The two directors along with Toshio Suzuki would give birth to Studio Ghibli in 1985. He was also a writer and director of two episodes in the second series under the pseudonym "Telecom", both produced a year after Cagliostro.[4] In works other than Castle of Cagliostro and the series episodes directed by Miyazaki and Takahata, Lupin III is portrayed as a scheming and lecherous thief, sometimes supported by his former enemies Jigen and Goemon. Miyazaki's film conflicts with the typical behaviour and personality of the characters, a change that has been described as Lupin "growing up".[4][5]

Castle of Cagliostro marked Miyazaki's debut as a theatrical movie director, but he also was a writer, a designer, and a storyboardist on the movie.[5]The production for the film began in May 1979 with the writing of the story and storyboarding for the film.[6] Miyazaki began by drawing a bird's eye view of the setting before creating the story to completion. After the first draft scenario was returned to Miyazaki without change, he began the storyboards. The story was divided into four parts, but after reaching the third part changes had to be made at the storyboard phase in order to not exceed the decided running time.[7] Animation work began in July while the storyboards were only a quarter complete; Miyazaki had to complete them during the animation production. Production wrapped up at the end of November and the film's premiere on 15 December 1979 was a short seven and a half months from the project's undertaking, with only five months of production time.[6]

Castle of Cagliostro's portrayal of the characters was changed to better identify with Miyazaki's concept of a "hero" and to remove a sense of apathy in the story.[5] This resulted in Lupin being a happy-go-lucky and upbeat thief who drives and lives out of a Fiat 500; a sharp contrast to the scheming and lecherous Lupin who drives expensive cars like the Mercedes-Benz SSK because it was "Hitler's favorite".[5] The changes would also impact secondary characters like Jigen and Goemon, changing their serious and cold personalities into friendly and humorous; even the erotic elements involving the femme-fatale Fujiko were dropped.[5]

The Japanese title is Lupin III: Cagliostro no Shiro, which is literally Lupin III: Cagliostro of Castle [sic].[b] So which would be better in English; Cagliostro Castle, Cagliostro's Castle, or The Castle of Cagliostro? It was my argument that The Castle of Cagliostro sounded the most sinister. Cagliostro Castle is just a castle's name, like Windsor Castle, but the Castle of Cagliostro emphasizes that it is the evil Count's lair![16]

In terms of box office admissions, the film sold 900,000 tickets in Japan as of 2006[update],[23] 109,072 tickets in France and Italy,[24] 58,000 tickets in the United States,[25] and 1,729 tickets in South Korea,[26] adding up to at least 1,068,801 tickets sold worldwide.

In 1980, Tokyo Movie Shinsha began screen testing the film in North America and it was notably shown at the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston for a marketing survey. It was later screened at other festivals during the 1980s, including FILMEX 82 in Los Angeles.[27] Despite resounding acclaim from the screenings, many of them were unsuccessful. According to Fred Patten, the primary reason was that, "most people did not bother to come to it since it was 'only' an animated-cartoon feature, not a 'serious' live-action movie."[28] A heavily edited and shortened version of the film eventually became available in North America in the form of an arcade laserdisc video game, Cliff Hanger (1983), which combined an English-dubbed version of the film's footage with that of the previous Lupin film Mystery of Mamo.[5]

The American theatrical debut was on 3 April 1991 in New York City by Carl Macek's Streamline Pictures, with the home release following in October 1992.[6] Due to copyright issues with the estate of Maurice Leblanc, the creator of the original Arsne Lupin, Lupin is referred to as "Wolf". Inspector Koichi Zenigata is erroneously named "Keibu Zenigata," likely due to a translation error (keibu being the Japanese title for a police inspector). The UK release followed on 10 June 1996 by Manga Video.[29] Optimum Releasing re-released Cagliostro in the UK after Manga Entertainment lost its licence in the UK.[30] The new DVD features an anamorphic widescreen print with the original Japanese audio track as well as the Streamline dub, both in stereo.[30][31]

On 25 April 2000, Manga released the film on home video in the United States with a newly commissioned dub that adhered closer to the original script with the correct names restored. The DVD preserves the film in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen and is non-anamorphic. It additionally features remastered audio and picture, but contains no extras. The same company later released a new special edition DVD of Cagliostro on 29 August 2006.[32][33] The disc is double-sided with the film on side A and the extras on side B. It includes a new digital transfer; Manga's English dub in 2.0 and 5.1 surround plus Japanese, Spanish, and French language tracks in mono; the complete film in storyboard format, accompanied by Japanese audio with English subtitles; an original Japanese trailer; a sketch and still gallery; a 26-minute interview with animation director Yasuo Ōtsuka, and animated menus.[32] The film is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen; however, the opening credits have been heavily re-edited to remove the Japanese credits, instead using selected still-frames of scenes that appear without Japanese writing. The English-translated names are superimposed over these stills. This change was negatively received by fans of the film.[33] Both DVD releases are out-of-print, with Manga no longer owning the U.S. film rights.[34]

3a8082e126