Lupin III: Voyage to Danger Anime Review

Reader Review

• Reviewer: Chainclaw
• Review Date: 2006-08-21 (updated 2012-10-13)
• 3 stars out of 5 (?)

Voyage to Danger is another film in the long-running and popular Lupin III franchise. The story here is pretty much the same as almost every other film, i.e. Lupin going off to get rich through theft while also performing a great deed (in this case taking down the evil Shot Shell corporation) to remind us all that deep down, he's really a nice guy. However, it has one key feature to separate it from the pack: Instead of endlessly trying to arrest Lupin, Zenigata is actually on Lupin's side for the entire duration of the movie. Unfortunately, this new concept is almost completely wasted; Zenigata is woefully neglected and has almost no role in the operation against Shot Shell at all.

Fortunately, this by itself is not enough to ruin the film. This movie still has everything that makes the Lupin franchise great: fast-paced action, tons of vehicle chases, cool gadgets (such as explosive chewing gum), good environments, and interesting characters. While Zenigata is neglected, the rest of Lupin's supporting cast all have pretty important roles in the film, and Jigen's sub-plot with Karen works out very well. The end result of all this is a fairly good Lupin movie that could (and definitely should) have been a lot better.

After the theft of the submarine at the beginning of the film (which is absurdly easy) most of the rest of it takes place on a private island owned Shot Shell CEO John Krause. The island is loaded with weapons, vehicles, ships, bunkers, security stations, and tons of armed guards. The whole setting makes for a lot of interesting action scenes--especially chases--because the characters can usually find a vehicle to drive, weapon to use, or bunker to hide in whenever they need one.

Like most Lupin films, this movie has two main villains, a head honcho and his warrior subordinate (though in this case, the warrior isn't actually working for the head boss). The head honcho, CEO John Krause, is pretty lame. He's basically a nerdy Bill Gates rip-off with no interesting qualities. And he's dumb enough to let himself get tricked by Fujiko's seduction not just once, but again after she betrays him the first time and holds him up at gunpoint! Even the incredibly stupid Chin Chin Chou from Dragon of Doom was smarter than that. The warrior, Keith Hayden, is much better. He's not a particularly original character, but he is very good at what he does. He displays a lot of combat prowess, and helps give the film some excellent action scenes.

Another problem with the film is it requires a lot of suspension of disbelief (even for anime). According to this movie, stealing navy submarines and nuclear weapons is as easy as shoplifting from a 7-Eleven, and a private island full of weapons owned by an arms dealer would be defenseless against air attack by a single cargo plane. It also has one of those stupid "James Bond moments" when the hero is captured by the main villain and given a chance to escape instead of being executed right then and there. The whole thing really made me wonder why on earth so many adventure films have them. It's not like they contribute anything useful to the story.

Rounding out the picture, the voice acting is pretty good and the animation quality is above average (especially for a film that came out in 1993). The only odd part is that for some reason Fujiko looks a lot different in this movie than in the others I've seen.

Even with all its flaws, Voyage to Danger is still a good, solid action-adventure movie. It has all the necessary elements, and the island full of weapons makes for a good setting. If you are a fan of action-adventure films and/or the Lupin franchise, this movie should appeal to you. It's still a bit of a disappointment that they took a very good idea (Lupin and Zenigata working together) and did absolutely nothing with it--the movie should have been a lot better.

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