AKA: ルパン三世 バビロンの黄金伝説 (Lupin Sansei: Babylon no Ougon Densetsu), Rupan III: Legend of the Gold of Babylon

Genre: Indiana Jones-esque adventure comedy

Length: Movie, 110 minutes

Distributor: Currently licensed by Discotek Media, available streaming on Retrocrush and Tubitv

Content Rating: PG-13 (adult situations, stupidity)

Related Series: Far too many to list here. The more notable examples would be Castle of Cagliostro, Tales of the Wolf, The Plot of the Fuma Clan, The Secret of Twilight Gemini and, of course, The Woman Called Fujiko Mine.

Also Recommended:

Notes: Like Plot of the Fuma clan, this Lupin III feature is labeled as "Rupan III", because we all know that members of the same franchise are potential copyright conflicts in the States. :P All rights earlier owned by Animeigo has been lost to Discotek Media.

Rating:

Lupin III: Legend of the Gold of Babylon

Synopsis

One day, Lupin gets a visit from a mysterious old hag. After she gives up trying to seduce him (yuck) she shares with him a riddle concerning the Legend of the Gold of Babylon, which has supposedly been searched for (with no success) for centuries, even by Napoleon and Hitler (or was that the Grail? I forget). Lupin and company (and ridiculously pneumatic Fujiko, Lupin's girlfriend/femme fatale) go through an incredibly convoluted path to search for the gold, which ends up being in ... ah, ah, ah ... I'm not going to reveal that, not here at least. It's way too stupid to give away. Along the way are several lame attempts by Interpol to apprehend the thief that would be laughable if they weren't so tragically stupid.

Review

Well. I saw a Lupin III flick in Japan, and I liked it a great deal. So, I rented one for one of T.H.E.M.'s anime nights, thinking that it would be just as good.

BIG MISTAKE. Apparently, the quality of different Lupin movies is highly variable, and I got one of the ones on the lower end of the spectrum. The art was completely different (read: BAD), the story was tragically hollow (actually, the one in Japan may have been just as bad in terms of story, but at least the art was good), and the chase scenes and escapes Lupin employs insult the intelligence of all who watch (and I do mean ALL). Suspension of disbelief needed for enjoyment of this flick were substantially higher than T.H.E.M. could provide (and we can believe pretty much anything).

The movie wastes copious periods of time in lame chase sequences that were less exciting than the plain white rental box the video came in. The blatant disregard for the laws of physics is especially dismaying, even for an anime. How dense is gold in this universe, a little less than styrofoam? Art and animation are a cut below average (I appreciate the Mad Magazine style they used, but they could have at least animated it well).

A few parts were almost amusing, but all in all, Legend of the Gold of Babylon is definitely one to avoid.

— Raphael See

Recommended Audience: Another example of a flick that isn't appropriate for the audience it panders to. The "adult themes" are enough to hesitate before showing this one to young audiences, even though they're the only ones that might be able to appreciate the movie's base humor.