This was Lupin III creator Monkey Punch's favorite film in the series. Following his passing, Nippon Television aired the film on Friday, April 19 2019 at 9:00 p.m., which concluded with a dedication to his memory.
Key action sequences in this film were inspired by popular action films of the 1960's and 1970's. The helicopter equipped with duel machine guns was lifted from L'Espion qui m'aimait (1977), the truck chasing Lupin and company was a nod to Duel (1971), and the red Mini Cooper Lupin drove was a homage to those utilized in L'or se barre (1969).
According to anime historian Frederick Patten, who worked as a story editor on the second English-dubbed version of the film, Mamo is written as "Mameaux", but fans were more familiar with using the term "Mamo". The name is written as "Mamaux" in the international English-language version of the film's trailer.
The Japanese theatrical program produced for this film includes the following data about its production:
- A total of 62,000 cels were used.
- 2800 cuts were made in the film.
- The storyboard ran 575 pages.
- 196 character design sheets were produced.
- 218 colors were used.
- The production employed a staff of 1315 people.
- 18,000 photos were used as reference for background and mechanical items.
This is the first theatrical Lupin III movie. Due to the increased popularity of Edgar de la cambriole (1971), the initial episodes of which were closer to the tone of Monkey Punch's manga than Edgar, le détective cambrioleur (1977), it was decided that the crew should be led by veterans of the earlier series and its predecessor Rupan sansei: Pilot Film (1969). These included director/co-writer/storyboard artist Sôji Yoshikawa, supervising director Yasuo Ôtsuka, co-writer Atsushi Yamatoya, animation director/character designer Yûzô Aoki and layout/design director Tsutomu Shibayama. Although the film was targeted towards adult fans of the manga and the first series, it was discovered that the film's attending audience was made up mostly of children and adolescents who were fans of the second series. When Toho and TMS commissioned a sequel (which would become Le Château de Cagliostro (1979)) a mere three days after the film's premiere, it was decided that it would be explicitly targeted towards younger fans of the series.