Lupin the Third - Der Meisterdieb

I would say this is a great movie but let me point out why I gave this a 7 out of 10.

Lighting. I know this is movie about thieves so it is expected that some parts will have to be shoot under the pretense of night time. However, their lighting is so bad that I would just imagine in my head what is happening and not look at the screen.

Good part of the review.

Lupin III is no Rurouni Kenshin. A lot of people expects the fights to be flashy. However flashy fights is not something that Lupin does.

If you grew up watching this show you would know that his fighting style is not some complicated sword style but a comical one. This is something the movie truly captured.

If you like a detective thriller kind of story with lots of action, you could do a lot worse than this. It's fun, has a lot of good stunts and it's an easy watch. There might not be the biggest acting challenge going on and the characters may seem easily drawn too, but that shouldn't be an obstacle in enjoying this.

It might be a bit too long for some people though and I am not that familiar with the general story of "Lupin" (this is not the first movie made about this character), so I can't tell you how this is compared to other sources/movies. I do know that I did enjoy myself and was entertained enough to give this at least one thumb up

I am a big fan of Lupin the 3rd series. Although it made many fans angry, I didn't feel it was not so bad that I got angery. Frankly speaking, I thought it didn't have to be made closer to the original forcibly. If you suppose it's another thing, it's ok enough to watch it withought getting bored.

It is clear that Ryuhei Kitamura has poured his heart to make this live-action adaptation as stunning as possible. The movie was heavy on action, and had quite a generous budget, with lots of explosion and CGI to 'complement' the action. The locations look great and the photography is very attractive.

Some other things are a little toostereotyped though, and sure Kuroki may fill out a leather jumpsuitpretty well but her acting skills seem to be restricted to smirking,even at a funeral, and in an odd kind of way, that pretty much sums up the film – good looking, but lacking depth. It's like they couldn't decide whether to go slapstick or Oceans 11 and as a result waver somewhere in between, where there aren't really all that many surprises.

The plot for the film? Honestly, a bit weak, and never properly fleshed out. A lot of characters who seem important to the story are never given proper motivations.

Yes, Lupin III is entertaining, but only on a fairly shallow level. In the end Lupin III is a fun romp that doesn't ask for much. Sadly, that's exactly what you'll give it.

Three words: Very poor lighting. They can use some flashlight for better illumination. Its one thing to shoot scenes at night, but its also another thing when the viewer can no longer make of who's fighting who. Plus shaky cam too. So one can just imagine how hard it was while watching.

If the story won't hold your attention, the amount of pretty faces and bodies will. Like seriously, they capitalized so much on Fujiko Mine(Meisa Kuroki) and Miss V (Yayaying Rhatha Phongam). They were very blazing hot all through out! For the ladies, there's Michael (Jerry Yan) and Lupin (Shun Oguri).

If there's one thing I can commend this movie for, it has to be the participation of actors from different countries. We see actors here from Japan, Thailand, USA, and Taiwan. And their English were okay! Maybe not as smooth, but there were subtitles to help anyway.

The story, like the source material, managed to be funny. Lupin III, for those who haven't seen the series, is our very elusive thief who could literally hide at the moon just to evade arrest.

There is this one scene which somehow put me into questioning. There's this scene where Lupin, as cunning as he is, employed some trick for the bad guys. He made use of this recorded tape/flashdrive and it was his animated look shown on the screen. They altered Lupin's face to match Shun Oguri's! Were they authorized to alter Lupin's animated face just to match to the actor who played him in live-action? I mean, they're basically altering a face already known for what, 30 years, just to accommodate a live-action adaptation? Which brings me, Shun Oguri doesn't really have this Lupin aura. Lupin was oval-faced, Shun Oguri is square-faced. There were these scenes where Shun Oguri makes the trademark smirk of Lupin. I'm a very forgiving watcher so I'll just go with that.

Tadanobu Asano was fabulous as Inspector Zenigata! And there's also the special participation of Goemon Ishikawa----> I didn't expect this.

Okay I'll sum this up. All in all, the movie is okay. There was a little drama, the action scenes were par, and the special effects were passable.