The latest Lupin III movie heads into Akira-level body horror

The “go in fully prepped” method is fairly difficult at the moment, because some installments in this story arc aren’t legally streaming in the U.S., and the available ones are scattered among different services. The “just charge in” method isn’t much of a problem, at least for anyone who’s watched or read a previous Lupin III story, like Hayao Miyazaki’s beloved directorial debut The Castle of Cagliostro, or the character’s first CG outing, 2019’s Lupin III: The First. The franchise’s five primary characters have been doing roughly the same things in the same ways since this franchise launched in 1967, and in this movie, they fall right back into their expected roles, though with a sense that they’ve never faced as daunting a challenge as they do in this movie.

Still, jumping straight into Immortal Bloodline feels a bit like watching The Avengers before seeing any other Marvel movie — following the plot is no problem, but it still feels like you’re being robbed of the full satisfaction of paying off an epic, years-long setup.

Immortal Bloodline assumes viewers are familiar with the five core characters from any classic Lupin story. Lupin III, grandson of Maurice Leblanc’s famed literary thief Arsène Lupin, is egotistical, mouthy, occasionally noble, and endlessly clever, especially when escaping against impossible odds. His allies (slouching sharpshooter Daisuke Jigen and principled, ascetic iaidō master Goemon) back him in every play, while rival thief and spy Fujiko Mine stands by to betray him whenever possible. Dogged Interpol Inspector Zenigata chases Lupin III around the world, promising to finally bring him to justice.

The “Lupin the IIIrd” sub-arc that ends with Immortal Bloodline began in the 2012 TV series Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, the first franchise spin-off not centering on Lupin III himself. That series tracks how Fujiko, Lupin III, and his gang all met for the first time. The show’s character designer and animation director, Takeshi Koike, continued the storyline in a series of one-off short films highlighting each of the franchise’s core characters — 2014’s Jigen’s Gravestone, 2017’s Goemon’s Blood Spray, 2019’s Fujiko’s Lie, and 2025’s Zenigata and the Two Lupins. In each of these movies, the title character faces a particularly powerful, dangerous, or tricky adversary, seemingly designed to counter their particular strengths.

In Immortal Bloodline, the “designed” part turns out to be literally true. Lupin III and the gang get an explosive invitation to a hidden island, home of the mastermind who’s been sending assassins and challengers after them. Forcibly separated on arrival, some of them face those adversaries again in grudge matches. The hidden mastermind has layers upon layers of secrets, but the most immediately relevant one is that he genetically enhances his minions with powerful gifts. If they fail at their missions, he brings them back to the island to die horrifically as their failed enhancements consume them or the island’s poisonous air chokes them.

That means Lupin III and the others are facing an army of dying, mutating footsoldiers, plus several boss-level fights, as the desperate enhanced killers who came after them previously seek revenge and redemption. Plus, the island’s atmosphere will kill them all within 24 hours. Worse yet, they’re facing the secret character who gives Immortal Bloodline its name — a superpowered adversary who shrugs off lethal damage and heals almost instantly from any wound.

Immortal Bloodline heads deep into body-horror territory. Between its abruptly mutating, swelling, and exploding mooks and its unkillable villain — who at various points regenerates from getting his bones smashed, his skin set ablaze, and his brains blown out — this movie feels more like an Akira riff than any previous Lupin III installment. The focus on hyper-evolution, the responsibilities that come with power, and baseline-humanity’s inferiority all contribute to the sense of watching an Akira sidequel. So does the villain, who notably resembles Akira’s aged-kids characters (though he looks something like a Dragon Ball villain as well) and the surprisingly gory, graphic violence.

Image: GKIDS

The animation is similarly heightened, with the characters’ iconic, familiar designs exaggerated to the extreme — Zenigata is particularly wide and blocky, Lupin III’s already bean-shaped head is especially elongated, and Jigen’s pointy shock of hair and matching beard are so pronounced, his head looks like a crescent moon. Unfortunately, for Fujiko, this thematic extremity gets extended to her sexual characteristics, which are almost always a focus when she appears — in this case, she gets stripped naked early in the movie, and winds up with just a skirt and a small scrap of cloth to cover herself, so she spends most of the movie with her (apparently nippleless and certainly gravity-defying) breasts bouncing in the breeze.

The “everything to the limit” mentality extends to the challenges the characters face. By halfway through the film, the island’s poisonous atmosphere has Lupin III and the others losing their vision, their strength, and their muscle control, while facing the same deadly adversaries they could barely handle when they were at their peaks. The stacked odds against them certainly set the stakes high.

But that pileup of threats also makes Immortal Bloodline into a draining experience. For nearly 60 years, these characters have been defined by being cheerfully cocky, inventive, resourceful, self-assured, and indefatigable. Seeing them beaten down and despairing is a novelty, but not a particularly fun one. Watching them battle the same undying villain over and over, or face horde after horde of identical zombie-like soldiers, isn’t nearly as energizing and gleeful as a clever heist or a fast chase.

Image: GKIDS

And in the end, the solution to their biggest problem feels entirely random and out of the blue. It’s certainly a startling twist, one that again seems to have roots in Akira’s ideas about hyper-evolution. But it’s so far off from the core ideas of the Lupin III franchise that it’s impossible to say what it means, or how the series’ fans are meant to relate to it. The movie’s climax also comes in the form of a long monologue, which kills the momentum built up through all the endless fights. And the ultimate ending isn’t entirely satisfying, since this story is meant as a prequel to the very first Lupin III movie, 1978’s Lupin the 3rd: The Mystery of Mamo.

Longtime Lupin III followers will certainly find things to enjoy in Lupin the IIIrd the Movie: The Immortal Bloodline. The movie may not be what fans normally tune into the franchise for, but it’s certainly daring and different, showcasing how the core characters each react to being pushed beyond their limits. The animation is spectacular, with thrilling, complicated, multi-dimensional fights and some actual scares when it seems like there’s no way out. (Your mileage may vary on the villain’s unsettling wardrobe; the brevity of his metallic loin-wrap means we spend almost as much eyeball time on his flexing, muscular buttocks as we do with Fujiko’s rack.) The experience of actually watching it is a breathless thrill. But after it’s over, Immortal Bloodline leaves a lot of questions behind, and a lingering sense of “Was that it?” For a payoff to a nearly 15-year saga, it lands with more of a thud and a shrug than a triumphant flourish.

Miyazaki’s Castle of Cagliostro memorably ends with Zenigata chasing Lupin III and his companions off into the sunset, with no clear direction in mind, and a sense that these characters and their chase might just go on forever. Immortal Bloodline ends with a mid-credits scene that’s crucial to the story, and that conveys the same information as Cagliostro’s finale, but with a muted sourness that lacks any of the series’ signature joy or humor. Just as there are two ways to watch this movie, there are also two ways to take this ending: As a disappointment, or as a perfect excuse to dive into a more upbeat past Lupin III outing, and revisit the reckless, wild energy that’s kept people returning to this series for almost six decades.

Lupin the IIIrd the Movie: The Immortal Bloodline is now available for rental or purchase on digital platforms. It will be released on Blu-ray on July 21st. Pre-orders are available on the GKIDS site.