Lupin the 3rd - The Mystery of Mamo

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Summary: Not Miyazaki's Lupin, but an energetic action anime ...
Review: 'Mamo' may be known to some American fans already as the secondary footage in the Laser Disk arcade game 'Cliff Hanger' from 1983. While this film doesn't match the personalities or situations in Miyazaki's Lupin masterpieces, it does stand on its own as a decent anime effort from the late seventies. The first half of 'Mamo' is an incredible globe hopping action adventure going through the Giza pyramids, Transylvanian castles, Paris streets and sewers, Spanish desert and cities and onto an American aircraft carrier. All the sequences are well thought out with a variety of ingenious villains until the middle of the film where Lupin and gang end up on Mamo's headquarter island in the Carribean sea. Suddenly, the plot stagnates and wanders almost aimlessly for the next fourty minutes before the bizarre wrap up. The uninteresting latter half is probably due to the director trying to follow the Lupin manga without proper editing. The DVD version is a little lack luster, but it is still a good film and the english dub is very good. Get it; it's decent.

Rating:
Summary: Great fun at the movies..
Review: Billed as the first Lupin III movie, "The Secret of Mamo" is a lot of fun to watch. The animation is not the greatest, but the storyline is interesting and contains some very funny scenes. The action is fast and furious and filled with gunplay and narrow escapes. If you've seen and enjoyed other Lupin features like "Castle of Cagliostro" then you will like this one.

Rating:
Summary: Great fun at the movies..
Review: Billed as the first Lupin III movie, "The Secret of Mamo" is a lot of fun to watch. The animation is not the greatest, but the storyline is interesting and contains some very funny scenes. The action is fast and furious and filled with gunplay and narrow escapes. If you've seen and enjoyed other Lupin features like "Castle of Cagliostro" then you will like this one.

Rating:
Summary: The first Lupin movie, and a great one at that
Review: First of all, for anyone that has seen any of the Lupin T.V. episodes will enjoy most of the movies. Personally I am a big fan of the show so I bought this dvd without having seen it before. Overall I am very glad I made this purchase. It feels like a 2 hour long episode and that is okay in my opinion. For those new to Lupin, it is basically about 4 expert thieves who travel the world and steal the most high profile items. Lupin III is the main character, and there is no better thief in the world. His crew includes samurai Goemon, gunman Jigen, and the beautiful Fujiko who is sometimes his ally and sometimes is not. Fujiko uses Lupin's infatuation for her to her advantage in getting what she wants from him, much to the dislike of his other partners. The Secret of Mamo begins with Lupin presumed dead. But as Inspector Zinegata, who is always after Lupin to arrest him, finds out Lupin is alive and well. But someone has set it up to look that way. Meanwhile Fujiko is lured to the promise of eternal youth and beauty by a scientist known as Mamo. Lupin, Goemon and Jigen pursue Fujiko, ending up on Mamo's island. While there they discover that Mamo has a plan bigger than they could have realised, a plan to take over the world that has been going on for 10,000 years. Can Lupin stop Mamo before it is too late? If you have seen the tv show then you already know the answer to that. But this is the first Lupin movie I saw and it is one of my favorites. This is old school anime, chock full of cheesiness and lower quality animation, but nevertheless Lupin is one of the best anime series ever. The series has influenced so many other things in the world of anime/animation in general, and if you see this movie you will know why. This is an action-packed movie that I really enjoyed, and I recommend it to fans of Lupin III or any anime fan in general.

Rating:
Summary: With Japanese and English dialogue! Lupin's first movie!!
Review: I am a big fan of Lupin the 3rd and I saw all Lupin anime episodes from the pilot film to the last one. Secret of Mamo is one of the best Lupin episodes ever made, as good as Miyazaki's "The Castle of Cagliostro"
It contains a lot of mystery. Mamo is really a mysterious character and is said to be Lupin's biggest enemy!
This is anime, but it has a very deep theme, "Is to be immortal really make people happpy?"
People call this move "great humbug", It contais a lot of scenes which many people consider silly but we enjoy it because it is silly. There're not so many movies that we are fond of because they are silly.
Actually, this movie has been translated into English FOUR TIMES! One for Japan Air Line, one for USA(translated by other company under the title of "Mystery of Mamo") and one for UK(under the title of "Secret of Mamo"). This is the fourth translation. This fact proves how good this movie is.
This DVD OF COURSE has both English and Japanese dialogue. All Lupin and anime fan will enjoy it. But it may be hard to understand for small children.

Rating:
Summary: No Japanese Language!
Review: I love this movie, but it is a simply atrocious to release a Japanese movie on DVD without including the original Japanese language dialogue as an optional audio track.

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Summary: THIS MOVIE GOES ALL THE WAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: I thought at first that this would be the same old boring japanimation junk. What I found was a lightning fast REVOLUTIONARY movie with potential and class. The movie does not resort to mindless carnage like so many other japanimation films. (I love ultra violence in japanimations but Lupin III uses smarts and thats equally wicked). Mystery of Mamo is an absolute masterpiece that i would call almost brilliant. Well done.

Rating:
Summary: The FIRST Lupin movie!
Review: This was in fact the first animated film done of Monkey Punch's manga character, Lupin III. The Wolf is reported to have been killed in Transylvania, so Inspector Zenigata goes to see for himself, but finds that Lupin is in fact alive and well. Lupin then grabs a small stone from an Egyptian pyramid for Fujiko who's just using him to gain eternal life from a maniac genius called Mamo. The stone will help him in his cloning experiments, which he claims have kept him alive for thousands of years, and his power threatens the safety of the world. So now, not only is Lupin after Mamo, but so is the U.S. government. It all ends with a bang though, alot of 'em! For an animated film from the late 70s, THE MYSTERY OF MAMO is pretty good and lives a little more up to the true tradition of Lupin's character. If you're a real LUPIN fan, you better catch this one quick!

Rating:
Summary: Not the best *Lupin* movie, but a pretty good movie itself.
Review: Well, the DVD is pathetically equipped, with a menu that totals to a scene select. There is no Japanese language version with or without subtitles (probably because the company who dubbed it, Streamline Pictures, never made a subtitled version to begin with). The movie itself, however, is very interesting, even if it lacks the animation and spit-and-polish of "Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro." Supposedly, a little blue-fleshed fellow named Mamo has been hanging around Earth for the past several thousand years by self-cloning. Mamo, a psychopath, also claims that he has controlled all of human history and even cloned Lupin III himself (who may very well be dead, hung in Transylvania). Character tensions are detailed, and everyone watching can see how the director felt the players in the film should interact with each other (and it's in a very different way than in the "Lupin III" works of Hayao Miyazaki). All-in-all, it's a pretty good movie, but it takes quite a while to get past the toothpick-like character design and the far-less-than-teriffic animation. Once you get through the slug, it's a fun little ride with some good jokes thrown in, too. But, it's still no "Cagliostro Castle".... Final plug: Visit my Lupin III Webpage!