Lupin III: Adieu, Nostradamus!

Only recently have I stumbled across the Lupin III series, and they have found a way to tag along at the end of my daily routines. Distinct characters, interesting plots, and an unusual sense of anxiety on what could happen next. The first few I had seen were intriguing none the less, but it wasn't until I had seen Farewell to Nostradamus that I had truly been engulfed by this world that Monkey Punch had created.

These movies are usually very fast paced and chaotic. Farewell to Nostradamus handles this well and succeeds where a lot of the Lupin III spawns blunder, at creating a smooth and climactic story line. There is never a point where the viewer is overloaded with plot material, all while building up to a tense and very satisfying ending.

Quick synopsis: Lupin III is a sly, suave, and slick international thief. He is accompanied by; Jigens (a nicotine addicted gun slinger), Goemon (a patient samurai), and Fujiko (a heart and neck breaker).

After a successful diamond theft, the team quickly turns their attention towards a high paying job. To find the lost pages of prophet, Nostradamus. Soon they are stuck in the middle of a presidential election, a kidnapping, and the eerily accurate predictions of a modern day doomsday cult. All while being chased by INTERPOL's leading investigator, Zenigata.

"Lupin III farewell to Nostradamus" is the fifth movie dedicated to our beloved gentleman thief, successor of the movie "The Fuma conspiracy".

In this film, set in the late nineties, Lupin returns to wear his iconic red jacket, in an action-packed adventure.

Personally I found this film very enjoyable and compelling.

The drawings are of excellent quality, expressive and well made, they perfectly convey the emotions of the characters.

The plot is very linear, simple, but well told. Packed with eco-involving action scenes.

In this film we are presented with a classic Lupin, in search of money and riches, but always faithful to his principles. Maybe not as ruthless as in other situations, but the film maintains a rather adult tone.

I highly recommend this film to all fans and beyond. It doesn't have a very high rating and you don't expect much, but it personally surprised me positively.

Pleasant, action-packed and never predictable.

I conclude with a personal thought: I often read in the various reviews continuous comparisons to the film "Lupin III the Castle of Cagliostro", directed by the master of Japanese animation Hayao Miyazaki.

Personally I find it a wonderful movie and one of my absolute favorites, but it is not the right yardstick to judge the various Lupin III films and series.

Miyazaki is a great director, but it is well known that his Lupin is very different from that of Monkey Punch (creator of Lupin III). So I find it wrong to judge some films as bad, just because Lupin is not like in "the castle of Cagliostro"... which is beautiful, but 90% of the time Lupin is represented differently, as Miyazaki's is a personal interpretation of the director, approved by Monkey Punch, but not shared.

Thanks for your attention and enjoy your viewing.

'Farewell to Nostradamus' is the fifth Lupin film and to me it's one of the best. My second favourite in fact behind 'The Castle of Cagliostro' (a personal favourite animated film of mine, as a fan of animation and anime). Also the boldest Lupin film since his first film 'The Secret of Mamo' with its surprising sexual content and the most entertaining since 'The Castle of Cagliostro'.

There is very little to complain about with 'Farewell to Nostradamus'. Occasionally it's a little rushed, the slightly too short length plays a part in this somewhat, and the character designs occasionally lack finesse (though nowhere near as underwhelming as those in 'Gold of Babylon', the weakest of the Lupin films). Otherwise, 'Farewell to Nostradamus' is great and a must watch for fans of Lupin.

Visually, along with the previous film 'The Fuma Conspiracy', 'Farewell to Nostradamus' is one of the better looking and more polished Lupin films. It's great here, with the attention to detail in the chase sequences and backgrounds being particularly impressive. The action is truly exciting with a healthy dose of both suspense and humour.

Its tense climax is one of the better ones of the films, closer to the great ones of 'The Fuma Conspiracy' and 'The Castle of Cagliostro' than the weird, underwhelming ones of 'The Secret of Mamo' and especially 'Gold of Babylon'. The music is an improvement here, being more dynamic and fitting, not discordant.

Writing is humorous (the humour is especially good, a lot of it being hilarious), thought-provoking and taut (every bit as successful with the suspense), with a little pathos in the mix. The story is gripping and a lot happens that ensures that the film is never dull and the tension and fun never slipping, not feeling over-stuffed either despite the large amount going on, or overly convoluted despite it being suitably complicated at times.

Characterisation-wise, 'Farewell to Nostradamus' is one of the better Lupin films. Lupin is a fun, charismatic lead, while the villains are suitably sinister and the supporting characters are more than up to his level particularly Zenigata and Fujiko. The voice acting is quite good, the dub being much better than in the previous film.

All in all, terrific. 8.5/10 Bethany Cox

Then we arrived at this Lupine III film But unlike the other previous ones this time This is a film released at the cinema So when I was very young I liked this film a lot and I really had wonderful memories of this film but as always I do not know whyat the time as I was very young because I reviewed this film when I am much older I realized that it is a really bad film Then this film I know that a lot of people love it and here there are really a lot of positive reviews even very high marks but for me thisI didn't like the film at all, I'll tell you the only two positive things about this film. The first is the animation, the second is Giulia's character. What a film, it was a really good character, but worse, I'm left with nothing because the plot isn't done well, the villain it's really pathetic because for all thefilm doesn't do anything at all except to take the book and then he doesn't really do great things this villain and he just makes a bad impression and then the really bad thing about this film is Lupine old broke by he just makes a bad impression especially in that one leaves when he receives alot of slaps has a lot of female people because he doesn't really get a lot in this movie even the slaps that go right sense this movie they always say one of the best But for me it's one of the worst and and I'm that person who is writing a very bad review selfdo you really want to see a real Lupine III movie Watch The Castle of Cagliostro instead because that is a thousand times better to conclude the vote 2-

Easily one of the best of over a dozen feature-length Lupin III animated features and TV specials made between 1979 and 2000, DIE, NOSTRADAMUS! is a 1995 film (98 min.) that showcases all of the Lupin series' regular characters to great effect, but also unleashes a formidable stable of new villains and some interesting supporting characters, including Julia, the fearless, precocious child who's heir to one of the world's largest fortunes, and Douglas, her blindly ambitious father whose U.S. presidential campaign is derailed by her kidnapping. For those new to the Japanese animated Lupin III phenomenon (introduced on TV in Japan in 1971), the regular characters are as follows: Lupin the 3rd, famous jewel thief and grandson of famous French literary character Arsene Lupin; Fujiko, Lupin's gorgeous, buxom and duplicitous sometime partner; Jigen, Lupin's fedora-wearing, gun-toting sidekick; sword master Goemon; and the gang's ever-persistent nemesis, Inspector Zenigata.

The action in the film is fast and furious and moves from Brazil to an unnamed city in the U.S. (the site of Douglas's 200-story skyscraper HQ, the tallest building in the world) to a Devil's Island-type penal colony to the interior of the Amazon jungle and back to the U.S. Several different parties are all after an original, complete copy of Nostradamus' predictions that Douglas keeps in a vault in his skyscraper. One of these parties is the cult leader of the Church of Nostradamus who needs the book to bolster his own power. The Brazilian soccer team gets involved at one or more points in the story.

The big action climax occurs in the giant Douglas skyscraper as all parties converge in a race against time to get the book before the bombs planted by one of the competing factions go off. There's quite a lot of genuine suspense and destructive spectacle in this section of the film, which will no doubt please fans of the series but may help to explain why, at least in the last three years, this film has not been picked up for distribution in the U.S. Some of the action here simply hits a little too close to home after 9/11.

While Lupin and Fujiko maintain their sense of humor throughout the film and even get romantic during one unusual interlude (with the appropriate-and expected--clothes-shedding), the overall tone is more serious and straightforward than most Lupin features. Things don't get too ridiculous or outlandish as they do in, say, LEGEND OF THE GOLD OF BABYLON (1985) and PURSUIT OF HARIMAO'S TREASURE (1995) to name two Lupin features that are available in the U.S. I would rank NOSTRADAMUS with Hayao Miyazaki's CASTLE OF CAGLIOSTRO (1979) as the two best Lupin animated features. Others I would recommend include THE FUMA CONSPIRACY (1987) which, like CAGLIOSTRO, is available in the U.S., BURNING ZANTETSUKEN (1994), DEAD OR ALIVE (1996), and WALTHER P38 (1997, also reviewed on this site).