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In New York (of all places), stone tablets leading to the tower of
Babylon, which is supposed to house an immense gold treasure, are found,
and of course masterthief Lupin III wants to get his hands on the
treasure, thus always on the run from Interpol inspector Zenigata, who has
teamed up with five beauty queens for this adventure, Lupin steals the
tablets from gagnster boss Marciano ... and it's off to Iraq with his
trusted sidekicks Gigen and Goemon and his girlfriend Fujiko. Once in
Iraq, Lupin and company have to realize someone has beaten them to the
location the tower is thought to be - which is also a good thing though,
so it's already partly excavated. Eventually, Lupin makes it into what is
thought to be part of the tower, masters all kind of booby traps, and gets
his hands on a giant golden winged lion, which he somehow manages to save
from the place that immediately after he has found the thing starts caving
in, and from here on it's a chase through the desert, running from
Marciano's men and Zenigata and his beauty queens, who have borrowed
tanks from the Kuwaiti army. Lupin and company manage to evade all their
pursuers, but then Fujiko steals the lion from the others and tries to
make a getaway on a yacht - when she and the lion are picked up by
Marciano's battleship. Lupin figures the lion can't be all that's left
of Babylon's vast treasure, that the tower itself has to be the treasure,
and that it for some weird reason will be found in New York (where the
stone tablets were found) of course. And it all has to do with Halley's
comet as well ... Back in New York, Lupin finds part of the treasure,
frees Fujiko ... and then the comet passes, and somehow, a golden tower
rises from the underground and flies toward the comet which is of course a
spaceship on a mission to steal Babylon's gold. However, Lupin finds a way
to cut the gold tower free from the comet/spaceship, upon which the tower
disintegrates - but at least Lupin has the satisfaction that nobody has
taken his loot ... Seijun Suzuki doing an anime - now that
sounds like something. However, if you expect Suzuki's trademark
absurdity, you will find yourself a bit disappointed - but that said, with
this film, Suzuki was forced to work in the context of a series (for the
TV incarnation of which he had also directed several episodes), but on the
plus side, the series as such did allow many surreal ideas and did go
intentionally stupid every once in a while as it is. So what you can
expect from the film is an amazing number of chases which time and again
quote the best Looney Tune cartoons from the 1940's,
serial-style storytelling, a light-footed approach to the material at
hand, jokes that range from the intentionally silly to the surreal and to
the ingenious, and lots of fun. And in my book at least, this sounds like
great entertainment.
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