The Castle of Cagliostro
The Castle of Cagliostro was Hayao Miyazaki's first feature film. It was part of a series of teevee shows and films about master thief and adventurer Arsene Lupin III, and, unsurprisingly, Miyazaki's contribution is considered the best, and least representative, of the Lupin stories. It begins with Lupin and his associate Jigen successfully robbing a casino only to find that the cash that fills their car is all counterfeit. Lupin decides to go to the source of the counterfeit bills, the tiny country of Cagliostro. There he and Jigen see a young woman in a car trying to escape from thugs and try, unsuccessfully, to rescue her. The young lady is the Princess Clarisse, and her captor is the exceedingly evil Count of Cagliostro. The count intends to marry her so he can get his hands on her ring, which is the key to a Great Treasure. The rest of the movie concerns Lupin's adventures sneaking into the count's castle and his attempts to rescue Clarisse. There are no great depths to explore here; what this movie is, is nearly perfect entertainment. Whatever you want in a movie -- humor, action, a resourceful hero, a gutsy heroine, a villain worth booing and violations of the laws of physics -- it's all here. It's a Miyazaki movie, so you also get lush backgrounds, vertiginous perspectives, a room full of giant gears and an autogyro. Some of the count's minions are probably too scary for the very young, and there's a fair amount of fighting, and would the Vatican really send an archbishop to officiate at the wedding of such an obvious creep as the count? Otherwise it's fine for most audiences.
The Castle of Cagliostro was first released in 1980. I think you can reasonably say that it marked the moment that Japan took the lead in animation. It's only recently, with the emergence of Pixar and Brad Bird, that Americans have begun making first-rate animated movies again.
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Text copyright © 2005 by Don McClane
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