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The Castle of Cagliostro
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is a 1979 anime film co-written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is one of the master thief Lupin III films.
The second animated Lupin III movie and arguably the most famous, Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki (who also co-directed the first Lupin III TV series and directed two episodes of the second) before he formed Studio Ghibli. Cagliostro features gentleman thief Lupin III, grandson to Maurice Leblanc's French literary master thief Arsène Lupin.
Originally subtitled by Columbia Pictures and Walt Disney Productions and then dubbed and released in 1991 by Streamline Pictures, a new dub was recorded by Manga Entertainment in 2000 and changed the tone of many characters.
The title alludes to La Comtesse de Cagliostro (The Countess of Cagliostro, the title of an original Arsène Lupin adventure by Maurice Leblanc).
Plot
The action is set in the fictional Duchy of Cagliostro, a tiny "Ruritanian" country that appears to be a conglomeration of various European locales.
Discussion
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Encyclopedia
is a 1979 anime film co-written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. It is one of the master thief Lupin III films.
The second animated Lupin III movie and arguably the most famous, Castle of Cagliostro was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki (who also co-directed the first Lupin III TV series and directed two episodes of the second) before he formed Studio Ghibli. Cagliostro features gentleman thief Lupin III, grandson to Maurice Leblanc's French literary master thief Arsène Lupin.
Originally subtitled by Columbia Pictures and Walt Disney Productions and then dubbed and released in 1991 by Streamline Pictures, a new dub was recorded by Manga Entertainment in 2000 and changed the tone of many characters.
The title alludes to La Comtesse de Cagliostro (The Countess of Cagliostro, the title of an original Arsène Lupin adventure by Maurice Leblanc).
Plot
The action is set in the fictional Duchy of Cagliostro, a tiny "Ruritanian" country that appears to be a conglomeration of various European locales. The Duchy is a land of mountains and lakes, with a castle town and a still-functioning Roman aqueduct. The Royal Guard are the police of this nation but seem to behave more like an army than a police force. This country is the smallest member of the United Nations with the population of 3,500. It was the origin of the legendary counterfeit called the "Goat Bills" which caused periodic economic turmoils all over the world for 400 years, including the Great Depression in 1929 in the United States. A group of assassins called the "Shadows" also works for the duke of the island.
The movie starts out with Arsène Lupin III and Daisuke Jigen escaping pursuit after having robbed the national casino of Monaco, only to discover that their entire haul is counterfeit. The bills are of a very high quality and could be none other than the legendary 'goat bills', perfect counterfeits that have been used to rock the economies of nations since the invention of paper money.
When Lupin was just getting started as a professional thief, he was almost killed while searching for the source of the goat bills. He decides that it is time to take another chance, and the two head off to the Duchy of Cagliostro.
Shortly after arriving, they rescue a young girl from a car full of thugs, only to let her get captured again when Lupin is knocked unconscious after tumbling down a cliff. They later discover that she is the late grand duke's daughter and is engaged to be married to the evil count. The count wants to recover the ancient treasure of the Cagliostro family, and needs the princess's ring in order to find it. Wackiness, chases and intrigue ensue.
Lupin makes his way to the tower where the princess is kept, and promises to help her to escape. She shows doubts in his capabilities, which dismays him. Shortly, the count arrives with a party of assassins. Lupin simply mocks him repetitively, until he is suddenly dropped down a shaft into the bowels of the castle.
The princess thinks he is dead, and bursts into tears. The count grabs her hand and removes the ring, which turns out to be a practical joke left by Lupin. Infuriated, the Count flushes him deeper into the cellars, which are full of bodies of political enemies. Whilst down there, he bumps into Inspector Zenigata, who apparently knows something is going on in the castle.
Meanwhile, the count dispatches two elite soldiers with aqualungs to retrieve the ring. they swim in, to find two skeletons with Lupin and Zenigata's clothes on. Suddenly, they are jumped by the pair; one is knocked unconscious, the other is pursued and knocked out in a tunnel by Lupin, who steals the aqualung. He swims up to the butler and guard captain, and locks them in the water.
The scene changes to the printing presses, where Lupin and Zenigata discover the bills. Zenigata looks for solid evidence, whilst Lupin burns all of the money. The pair flee out of the castle to their hideout, where they gather their forces for the attack.
Lupin's former lover, sometime enemy/friend Fujiko Mine shows up as an employee in the castle, and master swordsman Goemon Ishikawa XIII is called in to help the gang in their final assault on the castle, and Interpol agent Inspector Koichi Zenigata even finds himself allied with Lupin and company in order to expose the count.
Reception
Some fans of the original manga version of Lupin III dislike this movie as Lupin comes across as too good-natured where the original Lupin III was a cynical, playboy character. In the film, Lupin does refer to his original manga personality, but he states that he was only like that as cocky youth. Monkey Punch mentioned he particularly liked the film, although he did not quite agree with Miyazaki's interpretation.
Both of Manga Entertainment's releases of The Castle of Cagliostro received DVD Talk Collector Series recommendation status, the highest status given by the review website DVDtalk.com. Chris Beveridge of AnimeOnDVD.com gave the film a grade of "A+", although he disliked Manga Entertainment's use of PG-13 level language in the English dub. The Castle of Cagliostro placed in 5th place on Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs's list of best anime.
Releases
In 1979, Toho released the original theatrical version. In 1991, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer created a subtitled version for American theatres. MGM/UA Home Video released the film on VHS in 1992 (dubbed by Carl Macek's Streamline Pictures), and Best Film and Video Corp. released it on VHS in 1993 (again using the Streamline dub) Manga Entertainment in Australia and the UK purchased the license for the movie, using Streamline Pictures dub. Then Manga Entertainment purchased the license for the movie from MGM in 1995 and has been in Manga's North American, Australian and English catalogues ever since. But Manga Entertainment lost the license in Australia to Manga's Distributor in 2007 to Madman Entertainment, whose DVD release featured the Streamline dub with anamorphic widescreen video and artwork exclusive to both the Australian and UK releases. Manga's previous version of Castle of Cagliostro in Australia was rejected by most of the anime critics there and was eventually pulled from Manga's and Madman's catalogues. In 2000, Manga Entertainment created an all-new dub.
Streamline's dub, while lauded for the overall acting talent of the voice cast, has been widely criticized for its picture cropping and retiming of the opening credits to remove all traces of Japanese writings, as well as for liberties taken with the translation of its dialogue.
Manga's new dub of Cagliostro has been praised for its overall faithfulness to the original Japanese dialogue, but criticized for its addition of profanity in some scenes. In addition, Manga's original DVD release has been criticized for lacking an anamorphic transfer or any extras apart from previews for other Manga Video releases, and in the way its English titles are hard-matted onto the film's video image, obscuring parts of the screen behind them.
Optimum Releasing re-released Cagliostro in the UK after Manga Entertainment lost its license in the UK. The new DVD features an anamorphic widescreen print with the original Japanese audio track as well as the Streamline dub, both in stereo.
As noted in and , Manga released a new special edition DVD of Cagliostro in 2006. The disc is double-sided with the movie on side A and the extras on side B. It includes a new digital transfer; Manga's English dub in 2.0 and 5.1 surround plus Japanese, Spanish, and French language tracks in mono; the complete movie in storyboard format, accompanied by Japanese audio with English subtitles; an original Japanese trailer; a sketch and still gallery; a 26-minute interview with animation director Yasuo Otsuka, and animated menus. The movie is presented in 16:9 anamorphic widescreen; however, the opening credits, which feature Lupin and Jigen slowly making their way across Europe to the song "Fire Treasure", have been heavily re-edited to remove the Japanese credits, instead using selected still-frames of scenes that appear without Japanese writing. The English-translated names are superimposed over these stills. (This modified credits sequence is also present on the 2007 Australian DVD release by Madman Entertainment.) The DVD packaging of this special edition is strongly reminiscent of that of Disney's Studio Ghibli film releases.
In December 2008, Blu-ray Disc package was released in Japan. Its video format is MPEG-4 AVC and digitally-remastered audio is improved than that of DVD.
Influences
Castle of Cagliostro, along with its title, includes elements that were seen in other Arsène Lupin works. One such tale, La Justice d'Arsène Lupin by Boileau-Narcejac, involves the discovery of a tremendous stash of forged franc notes with which World War I–era Germany had planned to destabilize the French economy.
Maurice Leblanc's The Green-eyed Lady also featured a secret treasure hidden at the bottom of a lake.
Gary Trousdale, co-director of Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire, admitted that a scene at the end of Atlantis, where the waters recede from the sunken city, was directly inspired by a similar scene from Cagliostro.
Footage from this movie, along with the previous Lupin movie Secret of Mamo, appear in the 1983 laser disk video game Cliff Hanger.
Cast
External links
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