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Thief of Hearts In a rare interview, writer-director Takashi Yamazaki talks about his well-received CG-animated Lupin III: The First movie with us.
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here is often a certain amount of trepidation whenever a beloved comic-book character makes the jump from 2D to 3D CG. That was certainly the case when fans learned that Japanese artist Monkey Punch’s Lupin III, who has been stealing treasures and entertaining fans since 1967, was getting the CG movie treatment. The fictional gentleman thief has been the star of numerous TV series, films, video specials and videogames for more than five decades. Anime fans will also recognize the character from Hayao Miyazaki’s acclaimed 1979 feature The Castle of Cagliostro. So, it’s an understatement to say that expectations were high for writer-director Takashi Yamazaki’s CG-animated 2019 Lupin III: The First. The good news is that the movie is everything audiences would expect from a Lupin III adventure, and it manages to deliver a fun, cartoony version of the character and all his friends in CG, which is definitely not an easy task. The film, which was released in Japan last December, and made over $7.3 million worldwide, gets a www.animationmagazine.net
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limited release stateside and will be available on disc and digital download in January. The plot of the movie finds Lupin (voiced by Tony Oliver in the English-language version) in search of a mysterious Bresson diary, an item that was also sought by his famous grandfather. He teams up with an aspiring archeology student named Laetitia (Laurie C. Hymes) to stop the Nazis from obtaining this mysterious diary which can help them gain power to rule the world. Yamazaki, who has been going back and forth between the worlds of live-action and CG animation, also directed 2014’s box-office hit Stand by Me Doraemon — another successful CG translation of a 2D character. He says he joined the project in 2015, after TMS Entertainment
and Marza Animation Planet had been working on development for a couple of years. “I have been a big fan of Lupin, so it was a great fulfillment of a dream for me to direct this movie,” says the helmer. “Originally, I met the producers as they wanted my opinion about the project, and then we talked and soon, they asked me to direct the movie. The first draft of the script took about a year to complete, and then we went through many versions.”
A Thief with a Heart of Gold The director, who has also cited James Bond and Indiana Jones movies as influences for the movie, says he was a big fan of Miyazaki’s version of the character long before he got the continued on page 18
‘It was important to include all the beloved and typical Lupin elements, like how this cool character so was good at disguises or how Zenigata would chase him to the end of the world.’ — Writer-director Takashi Yamazaki
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january 21
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