Trailer and promo images for Japanese heist film Lupin III. It’s based on the manga series of the same name by Monkey Punch, first published in 1967. The manga has spawned into a media franchise which includes anime series, live-action shows and video games. It’s still popular these days.
This is the second live-action movie adaptation of the manga. Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura and stars Shun Oguri, Jerry Yan, Tetsuji Tamayama, Gō Ayano, Meisa Kuroki and Tadanobu Asano. The story follows the title character who lead a band of gentleman thieves. In cinemas in Japan on August 30.
That’s a lot of English for a Japanese trailer, got me confused for a moment. Bet the Japanese people will be just as baffled, if not worse, if the whole movie is like that. Can’t tell much about the overall quality of the film, but I think the main cast manage to capture the essence of the characters.
Monkey Punch created Lupin III as a grandson of fictional French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, who in turn was created by Maurice Leblanc in 1905. The manga title faced some copyright issues in early days but that was old story. I wonder how the French think of the Japanese franchise though.
Update 2016 – Haven’t got the chance to watch the movie after a couple of years. The film is heavily panned by critics, although it seems more of a mix for audiences instead. It also did moderately well in box office, there’s even talks of a sequel at some point but there’s no follow up on that.
