Lupin the IIIrd: Chikemuri no Ishikawa Goemon

Let's get the first thing out of the way: this movie truly lives up to its title It's gory. It's bloody. It's something that Lupin III is offering for pretty much the first time. Yeah, there's been blood and some mild gore, but there's some fairly disturbing scenes thrown in.

Art direction is fantastic as usual. I really like the more mature view of Lupin III that this movie has. It's something Lupin needed to a degree, almost as if it's a homage to the original manga. It's mature enough to be appealing to older audiences, but doesn't take itself too seriously. It has the ... same "air" as all the other Takeshi Koike films. It's dark and disturbing. Sexual at times. But that's something I don't mind. It's really startling how Lupin can either be fun and light, or can be the complete opposite and sometimes disturb its viewers.

It felt much more enjoyable than Takeshi Koike's first Lupin special, that being Jigen Daisuke's Gravestone. I feel like this special was more "tight" - now that they've worked with their interpretation of blue jacket Lupin once, they've now gotten it right. I'm excited to see what they might have in store next.

I watched this without subtitles and my understanding of spoken Japanese isn't the greatest, so I can't say much about the story, unfortunately. The main villain was interesting and creepy, despite not really looking like it.

As for characterization, the special mainly focuses on Goemon and his view of his honour from what I could understand. I felt like his characterization was similar to that of The Mystery of Mamo - he becomes a brooding samurai, faced with defeat, unsure of what to make of himself. He's not really a punchline at all. He's very serious in this special, almost to a terrifying degree (as Lupin puts it in the original green jacket series, he's a "scary man"). The antics between Lupin, Jigen, and Fujiko were quite entertaining. Their silliness was a lot more adult-oriented. I got the feeling from this film that Goemon wasn't very close to them at all, but I think it fit for his character. Zenigata's characterization of a more hardened detective is also starting to grow on me, and I liked his interactions with the gang.

Regardless, if you're a fan of the more violent and serious Lupin, this is a special that you need to watch. I'll definitely be rewatching it once subtitles come out so I can fully understand it. Visually, this is the most appealing thing. The animation is incredibly smooth and the characters are always so nicely drawn. The way they draw each character has really been refined in this special. It's definitely a treat, so I highly recommend you check it out.

Lupin the Third: Goemon Ishikawa's Spray of Blood lives up to its name by havings lots of blood in it, which is a good thing since it didn't meet most of my other expectations. What I wanted from this movie was a look at Goemon as a character because he has typically been sidelined in many of the other titles in the franchise. If that's what you're looking for, you'll have more luck watching The Fuma Conspiracy, Dragon of Doom, or certain episodes in any of the TV series because this says very little about Goemon.

If you've already seen the movie, then you might be ... disagreeing with me on this. Goemon has a lot of screen time, he struggles with a conflict unlike we've ever seen before, and the final scenes are his time to show off. But I have two major problems with how this was executed. One, we never learn anything about how Goemon is feeling, what he's thinking, or why he does anything directly from him. He barely talks to the other regular characters or interacts with them. Every insight into him is provided by Lupin's narration, even when there's zero logical reason for him to know the things he explains. As a result, Goemon comes off as very distant, barely a character. My second problem is that Goemon having such a crisis in the movie makes no sense. The fight that breaks his spirit is nothing out of the ordinary, but if it has such an effect on him, it makes you wonder if this is the first time in his life that he loses. I don't think they wanted to make the title character come off as a spoiled brat who's never had to face disappointment before, but that's what it looked like to me. If they'd presented this as Goemon being an arrogant upstart who learns a lesson, it would have had the potential to be great, but due to the emotional distance, it just doesn't work.

The plot is fairly incoherent as well. It starts off promisingly enough, with Goemon having been hired as a bodyguard for a mob boss whose casino Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko have decided to rob. The three are being targeted by a new character called Bermuda Ghost, a terrifying giant of a man who seems inhumanly unstoppable. Meanwhile, Zenigata is searching for Bermuda Ghost as part of an investigation.

Circumstances get all these characters mixed with each other, and soon it looks like we'll be following Goemon on a path of personal revenge and reclaiming his honour. But, due to the reasons mentioned above, it's not a very engaging path. The movie fails to wrap up most of its plot threads. We never learn who hired Bermuda Triangle and why. Zenigata's investigation goes nowhere and we never find out why the chief was trying to stop him, creating the feeling that his plot line existed only so that we could have some exposition on who Bermuda Ghost is. Goemon gets over his crisis due to a deus ex machina plot point that comes out nowhere and makes so little sense that Lupin has to explain it to the viewer. The revenge angle has no proper climax for anyone involved. Fujiko just walks out of the movie.

In short, I feel that the people who made this movie had lots of really cool ideas they wanted to include, but they didn't manage to create a story where the events follow each other logically. I think it might have benefitted from being longer so that it could have given some depth to its characters and tied up the plot more neatly. One of the elements I like best about the Lupin franchise is how the regular characters play off each other, and that is almost entirely missing here. We get a few amusing scenes with Lupin, Fujiko, and Jigen, but other than that it feels like the characters only exist to make the plot move onwards.

All that said, there were also elements that I enjoyed. The animation and colour design are great and make the movie beautiful to look at, the soundtrack is smooth, and there were a bunch of cool and entertaining scenes. The first half in particular worked and raised my expectations pretty high. The fight scenes were as brutal as the title promises, so if you like that kind of thing, this is definitely worth a watch just to see Goemon get beaten that badly. Since this is a direct continuation of Jigen's Gravestone, I assume there will be more movies taking place in the same timeline. Hopefully they'll do a better job of wrapping things up.

Takeshi Koike, all praise due.

On a whim, I put in my bluray of The Woman Called Fujiko Mine the other day. It had been a while since I first watched the show and it was a lot… stranger than I remembered. No matter what you think about its bizarre plot and gratuitous nudity, the style is undeniably fantastic (Koike's handiwork, judging by the staff credits.) The two recent offshoots of the show share the style but, as feature films, have far simpler plots. In my opinion, this works in their favor.

Goemon Ishikawa’s Spray of Blood—what a fucking title—is, first and foremost, beautiful. Not only does ... it share the great style of TWCFM, but it goes even further when it comes to the action. The action scenes in this film are as if the animators studied every single great chanbara of the 20th century and, pooling their knowledge and passion for these works of art with their knowledge and passion for animation, created the film. Okay, I’m being hyperbolic, but Goemon’s sword-fighting is very reminiscent of classics like Lone Wolf and Cub. The delayed blood-sprays, the delayed dismemberment… it’s very satisfying.

The plot is not only simplistic, it’s mystifying. The antagonist is a lumberjack-looking fellow who, according to a brief moment of back-story, apparently died in a covert military operation in Bermuda; thusly called The Bermuda Ghost. Before slaughtering his enemies like a demon with limitless strength and endurance, he tells them that he’ll turn them into compost for fertilization. At first hearing this dialogue I thought he was going to end up having some monologue about radical militant environmentalism… but it goes unexplained. Does he originate elsewhere? I certainly don’t remember him from previous Lupin III chapters, but who knows how many antagonist-of-the-weeks there were in the original television show.

This film is central to Goemon’s character, and it does a perfect job examining him. It’s no origin story and there’s not even much of any character development. It simply depicts Goemon Ishikawa’s obsession with his status as the strongest warrior around. He has no real moral dilemmas outside of his austerity to bushido. After pointlessly slaughtering an entire yakuza clan, he simply prays for the dead at a shrine as a matter of honor, not of regret. The best part of the character study however is Goemon’s desperation to understand how he failed the duel the first time and how to correct the mistakes that lead to that failure. He endures extreme suffering (that should definitely kill him at many points) to achieve the skill to defeat his opponent (Lupin calls it finding a sixth sense and achieving enlightenment, but who knows what Lupin is rambling about.)

Goemon Ishikawa’s Spray of Blood is a simple action flick that is a beyond-worthy addition to the enormous Lupin III franchise. If you like any Lupin III show, manga, or film, you’ll probably enjoy this one. If you have a liking for samurai flicks, you will surely enjoy the animated katana-slaughter. Oh, and Fujiko makes obscene moaning noises in one scene.

I've never really delved into the treasure trove that is the Lupin the 3rd series - outside of watching the outstanding Castle of Cagliostro, which was more due to the talent attached to the production. After stumbling upon it by chance, I watched Goemon's Fountain of Blood, due to my fast love of the character from the aforementioned film, and excitement over the little bits of it's events I knew about. What I found is something that appealed to me so much, and makes me a little bit sad there isn't anything quite this brutal (to my knowledge) in the rest of the franchise.

Fountain of ... Blood details Goemon, frequent collaborator to Lupin and friends, who is struggling with a hired assassin on behalf of a yakuza outfit he's working for. The premise is basic, but gives off a feeling similiar to The Terminator; Hawk is the assassin Goemon is targeting, who is in turn targeting Lupin, Jigen and Fujiko. For 85% of this film, nothing stops Hawk - he's like a bulldozer that absolutely nothing can slow down. It one of those storylines that don't have much, but it's all they need.

Easily the highlight of the film is it's art direction and phenomenal action. The action in this film rivals the best that came out in 2017, and had me on the edge of my seat at every occasion. The art direction is strong, very strong, and the animation is nothing short of wonderful, especially when it comes to any scenes involving Hawk, the animation putting a lot of care into showing how his weight and fighting style would actually play out. For the main cast, the main cast all just look like modern day versions of how they've always looked. Though, I gotta say the character designs for all the one-off characters in this look very distinctive, especially for the yakuza characters that Goemon interacts with in sections of the film.

This film is legitmently one of the more brutal things i've watched in recent times, and I don't say that lightly. Some of the fights in this film are simply borderline horrifying. Limbs are sliced off, bodies are broken up, and even worse. I was somewhat aware of the more mature nature of the film, but I still didn't exactly expect it on this level from a Lupin III property. In all honesty, it was a breath of fresh air seeing people actually take so much bodily damage from swords and axes and the like. The combat is simply amazing from start to finish - Goemon and Hawk's fights have a huge amount of weight and precision to them, and has all the consequences of two masters of their styles clashing.

I have nothing but good things to say about the antagonist of the film, Hawk, a fairly unusual design for an assassin in a show like this. The most interesting thing about him is the fact just the way he's presented in a scene changes the feeling he gives off - in one scene, he's picking up a child and looks like a lovely father - in the next, he gives off the vibe of The Terminator as he relentlessly pursues Lupin and Co. He's simply one of the more unique antagonists I've seen in a anime film recently - the inventive way he fights and his general demeanour are ujst so off-putting that you legitemently don't know what's going to come out of his mind next. Otherwise, the whole cast is pretty great to see, but outside of Goemon, I didn't feel any of them acted out of what I'd expect from a Lupin III property - though I have to say, the icy coolness in which Goemon tackles his opponents in the second half of the film was a hoot, and lended a lot credence to the incredible skill he's always said to have.

I gotta say though, the method in which Goemon learns to defeat Hawk felt pretty silly - I understand this is Lupin and silly solutions are probably pretty commonplace, but I didn't think there was any real reasoning why Goemon's 'training' actually helped him defeat his gigantic foe. Aditionally, I think it would've made more sense if Fujioko wasn't even in the film - she does very little beside just interact with Lupin and Jigen, and then leave pretty much halfway through the film without doing much. It isn't a huge deal, but it just seemed like a big underutilisation of the character.

Overall, Goemon's Fountain of Blood is a great film that's well worth watching if you're in the mood for something a little different and a little more brutal then the norm. I feel, for the most part, you don't need prior knowledge of Lupin III to watch it, but probably having a little basic backstory will help regardless. It's absolutely gotten me more interested in the Lupin series, and even on it's own, it's just a damn good time with it's darker and more mature tone.

Before I explain why the worst score possible, I want to say a few things. I've watched the entire Lupin III's collection: every episode, every movie, every OVA and every special. Lupin III is a franchise that exists for over 50 years and every time a new adventure is announced, I get excited about it and hope that this legendary series continues to get more attention and love in the future.

A 1/10 is the worst score possible on this website and I'll now explain why in my opinion is a fai score for this film.


Animation: the visuals are my least favourite from all ... the different animation styles that Lupin III has seen over 50 years. I like the detailed backgrounds but I don't like the "rough, dark" appearance of the main cast.


Sound:
1) the soundtrack does not include jazz or "samurai" songs that are part of the musical legacy of Lupin III.
2) the iconic Lupin III theme song is nowhere to be found. You may argue that because this special is more focused on Goemon, it's something that made sense to leave out of the film but I don't agree with that at all. The movie is titled "Lupin III" and is part of the franchise. Goemon himself is a main character in the franchise. It only makes sense for the trademark instrumental to be there.


Story and characters:
1) the only characters that act as themselves are Jigen and Fujiko. The rest of the cast seems to have either nothing or very little with the versions of themselves that have existed for 50 years. Lupin doesn't act as his "happy-totsan-love-me-Fujiko" ways once throughout the film; Zenigata is overly-serious and shows no emotion whatsoever about the possibility of chasing/arresting Lupin and his buddies. Goemon does the unthinkable and this will be a SPOILER!!!!! - Goemon dismantled his Zantetsuken to get a new guard and handle. There's no way in flipping hell that Goemon would do this. Every single individual that has watched Goemon for at least 5 minutes understands how Goemon feels about his sword. This sword is sacred and is more important to him than his own safety. And then of course Goemon gets stupidly injured by bullets that he's been able to easily dodge or cut for 50 years and of course at the end Zenigata doesn't acknowledge him as part of the Lupin III gang and warns him not to trouble his police work. It's been 50 years worth of thefts and other shenanigans for Goemon with Lupin and the rest but for some stupid reason, someone thought it would make sense for Zenigata to have a case of sudden memory loss about Goemon's involvement in those events.
2) SPOILER: I don't know where to put this but to have Goemon challenge a baby Megalodon was ridiculous and absurd.


Regardless if you read the spoilers above or not, the main reason why I gave a 1/10 to this movie is because of this: I sat down and chose to watch this movie because it's part of the Lupin III franchise. That's what I expected. It doesn't sound like Lupin III (soundtrack) and the characters don't act like the characters from Lupin III. If something takes the name of Lupin III and/or its characters I demand to get the same enjoyment and experience and unfortunately this was a waste of 1 hour of my time that just made me feel that Monkey Punch's creation was disgraced by this rubbish.

The movie's main strengths are the animation, then the music, then the art. The story is its main flaw.

Story-wise, even as a self-contained story, it lacks too much substance. You follow a triangle situation between 3 groups, but most of the fundamental motive(s) of the characters throughout the movie are never explained. You just have to assume a lot of what's going on and there are some script flips that also don't make too much sense, makes you go "why is he doing that all of the sudden?".

Combat-wise, the animation is fluid. Great detail on the fights. It's enhanced by the camera work such as ... slow motion, camera shaking, change of angles, x-rays and wind effects. There's a great focus on technique as well; precise moves with several close-up shots, showing you movement of the skin, etc.

Character-wise, the characters are very charicatural (in a good way). The thieves are your classical nonchalent/funky guys, the main bad guy is an all-American terminator alpha male butcher who seemingly isn't phased by anything. The samurai is very inclined on his honor and so forth.

Music-wise, it has a nice Western/Bond-like OST, especially with the detective/thriller undertone the story has.

Art-wise, the art has that American/Boondocks-ish feel to it. One complaint for me is that there's a little too much CGI. The CGI, for CGI standard, is good, but I can't stand CGI at all, no matter how high quality it is. The CGI is usually applied to fire and water in this case.

Overall, it feels like a somewhat pointless episodic shortfilm but with great art and combat. It was fairly enjoyable.

Lupin the IIIrd: Goemon's Blood Spray is the second in Takeshi Koike's darker take on the Lupin franchise. Focusing on the title character, Ishikawa Goemon, we are introduced to him acting as a bodyguard to a Yakuza boss running a casino styled cruise ship. In the background we have Lupin and the others organizing a heist on this ship, all the while an assassin sabotages it. With a cool and action packed introduction to the movie, the tone is set for the rest of it.

First and foremost, Goemon's Blood Spray is an action focused movie. As such, its appropriately fast paced and frantic. This is ... mostly to do with the main antagonist Hawk. He's a bad ass and unstoppable fighting machine with the mission to kill Lupin. He's also what I found to be the strongest point of the movie, mostly because he's so delightfully entertaining. He holsters his axes like guns and is just as quick to the draw with them, he has metal teeth that he bares in a mocking way and he's as durable as a vault. That isn't to say that he's unintelligent either. He's as calculating and as deadly as any other Lupin antagonist, he's just backed up by his immense strength. Because of these qualities, the pressure is kept up and the tension is high. The title character, Goemon, is tasked with stopping this threat because of his failure to protect his boss. As in other entries, he is stoic, confident and assured in his skill. Pitting the two aforementioned characters against each other creates some greatly entertaining action scenes.

Speaking of action scenes, the animation only helps elevate them. Under Takeshi Koike's direction, we not only have some fluid action animation throughout, there are also some intense and inventive sequences of action throughout that play into the strengths of each combatant. The spectacle of the fights have also been appropriately elevated in order to accommodate and action flick centered around Goemon. Art wise, the character designs are as strong as they were in the first movie, and backgrounds are still great. A point I'd like to emphasize is that despite all of the action I've been alluding to, there are some incredible moments of quiet in the movie, letting the sound design shine. These scenes let you immerse yourself in the moment or let you feel the buzz of an adrenaline high from some action sequences. The only nitpicks I have with the movie is that it doesn't do much to move the overall plot of the series of movies, which I would have liked to see. Zenigata is also in the movie and he doesn't seem to do too much, or at least as much as I'd like to see from him.

All in all, Goemon's Blood Spray is a really intense action thrill ride from start to finish. Though its a bit bogged down by the lack of overall plot progression, it more than makes up for it with its ever entertaining villain and great action scenes.

Since this was my second exposure to Lupin after watching Miyazaki's work, I found it pretty jarring to see Lupin get shitfaced after stealing from the Yakuza.

On a character design level, I have an issue with Jigen's hat. Why does his hat look like he runs a D&D session every Thursday where he uses that hat to say "guys I have to be the wizard look at my hat"

Goemon was pretty cool in the movie, I don't really understand how he had the shark jump over him when he was on the rock or how that resulted in him getting cut on the back but ... I guess that's just what happens when you lose lane as Yasuo

Fumiko smokes weed, that's really all she does in this movie

the issue is that the villain is just my uncle Rukus who lives in Idaho. Lost his arm the same way too, only it was the cashier at Walmart with a kitchen knife and not a samurai weeaboo.

lupine the third chikemuri in the Ishikawa Goemon is an excellent and very competent film
story: 8/10: the story even being just one more about revenge, can be very captivating and has a more serious footprint, is even better
art: 9/10: the art is beautiful, almost perfect, is well differentiated and more artistic than in the previous anime, which is more reminiscent of the opening of the lupine of 2015
sound: 8/10: the soundtrack is excellent, ost is great is combines very well with the rest of the film, well calm more captivating
Character: 10/10: I love the characters of the lupine franchise, mainly lupine and goemon, and as ... this movie has the focus on goemon, the personage is even better here than in cagliostro castle that was the only work out that I saw .
Enjoyment: 10/10: the final fight is epic, very good and not at all predictable and VERY well animated

It feels really awkward to call this a movie when it seems to be a 1 hour special. There are a lot of things not explained in the movie, like the reason behind Hawk coming after Lupin and the gang, why Lupin and the gang were presumed dead according to the Inspector, and why the police didn't want the Inspector do continue his search. The movie is also split into 2 parts for some reason, and it really felt like it could've used a 3rd part to wrap up all the story lines that ended up being left on the workshop floor.
The animation and more ... serious, gory style is where the movie gets most of the points from this rating, but that alone cant carry a movie; 5/10 decent watch for the action.

The Blood Spray of Goemon Ishikawa was a pretty good watch for a Lupin movie. That being said, there were a few things I was disappointed in. For example, we did not see much of Lupin in action or any of his antics. We mostly see Lupin as a side character along with the others while Goemon is the main character in the movie. While this should be ok, the reason I complain about this because in the previous movie, Daisuke Jigen’s Gravestone, Lupin still had more of a hands on role even though Jigen was the main focus of the story. There wasn’t really ... any mystery to solve in this movie and the plot was straight forward. Goemon loses his honor with the death of his boss, then must reclaim his honor by taking on the assassin in a duel. Lupin and the gang were mainly just a plot device, as in they didn’t do much of anything except play damsel in distress. Another issue, I never quite understood why the bodyguards left their boss to die just for saying “Where’s Goemon?” They actually just walked away as their boss was being crushed by rubble. Where they jealous of Goemon? Even so, I do not believe we saw enough of the characters interacting with the boss of Goemon to really justify some sort of angst they would have against them. Another point, Fujiko had no purpose in the film besides being fan service. Don’t get me wrong, that is her major role in the series anyway, but it lacked the back stabbing, double crossing charm to it. Fujiko has the tendency to help shake up the plot and add some twist… She did none of that she had a few lines and aside from using a bong provocatively and incorrectly, Fujiko did not offer much fanservice either. Lstly, we never did find out who hired Hawk to assassinate Lupin and the gang…at all. We get a few hints that is could be potentially linked to the previous movie, but nothing concrete. Despite these concerns, just seeing the movie to mainly see Goemon in action was a treat well unto itself.

Lupin the Third: Goemon Ishikawa's Spray of Blood (Bloodspray) is the second film in the Fujiko Series of 2012. Its distinctive styled art style and more mature themes were the watermarks of this series something this movie continues.

I, for the most part, enjoyed Bloodspray the midsection was a bit middling but the last quarter makes up for it. The story is well............ that's one of my problems with the film. Lupin and gang rob the mob/Yakuza, but while they're doing that an assassin in the form of a terminator like a lumberjack destroys the ship resulting in the death of the mob boss ... that Goemon was tasked with protecting. For some reason, after that, the logger goes after Lupin and Jigen. Maybe I missed something in the beginning, but it was never explained adequately. We don't know who this assassin is and I wish they would have revealed more.

Fast forward a bit the Lumberjack has managed to pin down Lupin, and then Goemon steps in but loses their duel. The next portion is a training montage that not great, but the final two scenes where Goemon deals with the mob who were disappointed with him not killing the assassin and his rematch with the lumberjack is easily some of the coolest fight scenes I have seen in an animated film in a while.

That said those last two fights are super gory so if you are in any way squeamish it will be rough on you, especially with how nasty those final two wounds Goemon gets look.

The animation in this film goes without saying is absolutely stunning especially the rundown temple that the rematch takes place. Sound wise everything fit, nothing was standing out to me though.

Bloodspray is a good film that continues the legacy that its predecessor made. I recommend a watch if for nothing other than those last two scenes.

I love Goemon. He's my favourite Lupin the Third character, so having a movie all about him is a bit of a dream come true and undoubtedly colours my opinion of this film.

I will start off by saying don't bother watching this if you haven't seen the last one (Jigen's Gravestone) because the story is almost a direct follow on. You can probably get away with not watching it but I wouldn't suggest it.

As a Lupin adventure this one is very, different. Its A LOT more violent and some scenes are extraordinarily graphic. The list of injuries Goemon accrues is second only to the number ... of other people's limbs he chops off.

Goemon's training scenes are actually pretty good, we get to see him struggle with his defeat and need to reclaim his Samurai honour. Though this comes at a cost that we don't get much of Lupin, even less of Jigen and Fujiko is only present for I think two scenes.