LUPIN III: FUJIKO'S LIE (2020)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Technically, the final entry in Takashi Koike's trio of LUPIN III projects continues the plotline in which Lupin and his gang find themselves targeted by assassins-- though not in the usual fashion, since no assassins chase the thieves this time. Instead, by a far-fetched coincidence, one of Fujiko's many moneymaking gambits coincidentally leads the gang to a middleman responsible for abetting, and in some cases, creating specialized assassins. Fair warning: though the Lupin gang naturally comes out on top in dealing with the middleman, his henchmen and his assassin, the mastermind is not disclosed, apart from the vague allusion seen at the end of JIGEN'S GRAVESTONE. Given that allusion, it's possible that Koike never had any intention of executing a final story with said mastermind. Koike may have meant to imply that the brains behind the assassins meets his fate at the end of this film, which *may* take place chronologically after these three short films, as well as Koike's teleseries A WOMAN NAMED FUJIKO MINE At any event, in the four years there has been no news of more Lupin III projects by Koike, so FUJIKO'S LIE-- which was completed slightly after the death of Lupin-creator Monkey Punch-- may be Koike's last word on the franchise.

In any case, LIE is also one of the best Lupin iterations thus far.

Fujiko's caper this time is like many others she's pursued separately from Lupin, Jigen and Goemon. (Indeed, Goemon is entirely absent, and no one speaks of him, though logically the only possible outcome of the samurai's confrontation with Zenigata at the end of BLOOD SPRAY would have consisted of Goemon stunning the cop and escaping.) For a period that must be over the course of months, Fujiko works as a maid to Randy, an accountant who works for the firm of rich CEO Codfrey. Fujiko apparently learned somehow that Randy was embezzling huge sums of money from his employer, which the accountant then funneled into a Swiss bank account. In many previous incidents Fujiko ingratiates herself with a mark in order to seduce him and take his riches. But that's not possible this time, because Randy's motive for embezzling is to pay for a heart operation to save the life of his ten-year-old son Gene. Therefore, Fujiko successfully wins the trust of both Randy and Gene (who never knew his deceased birth mother) -- so much so that when Randy learns that Codfrey's henchmen are coming to get their money back, he charges Fujiko with protecting Gene. 

Fujiko and Gene escape Randy's house just before it blows up, and Gene realizes he's just become an orphan. Fujiko then finds out that Codfrey has a unique assassin in his employ: Bincam, a gangly, gray-skinned individual who can't be harmed by bullets and can hurl what looks like clouds of dust from his hands; clouds that can stun or even mesmerize those that breathe in their contents. Fujiko has a brief fight with Bincam and is defeated. However, Lupin and Jigen, who have been investigating Codfrey for their own reasons, show up and help Fujiko escape with Gene-- who, incidentally, is the only one who can access the Swiss bank account now that his father is gone.

Fujiko temporarily holes up with Lupin and Jigen, and Gene, still tormented by the loss of his father, offers to give Lupin the entire fortune if Lupin avenges the death of Randy. Lupin respects the child's attempt to honor his parent, and when Fujiko protests, Lupin wonders if her only reason for helping the child is to make sure she gets her hands on the money.

Lupin, suspecting that Bincam is similar to the assassins sent after his gang (which will be indirectly confirmed), tries to lure Codfrey into a trap, but the affair goes south. Fujiko takes Gene to a cheap motel to hide out. 

The script skillfully plays Fujiko down the middle. At times she seems genuinely concerned with Gene's fate, both because of his bereavement and his medical issues. At other times, she seems totally focused on wheedling the account information out of him. Some reviewers didn't like a scene in which Fujiko bathes with the young boy in a tub. But as far as I can tell, the idea of a mother bathing a child in this way would be entirely appropriate in Japan, even if Fujiko is seeking to play on Gene's need for maternal care. Gene finally does disclose the account number. Fujiko then leaves, claiming that she plans to come back. Gene is left alone in the room, wondering if he made a big mistake.

Fujiko does come back, for reasons not entirely clear until the story's end. However, Japanese police discovered Gene alone, took him away, and (very improbably) remanded him to the custody of Randy's former boss Codfrey. Fujiko infiltrates the CEO's HQ and is captured by Bincam, though she does have the chance to use her sexual attractiveness to confuse the zombie-like specter. Lupin and Jigen show up, battle Codfrey's henchmen, and liberate Fujiko and Gene. But Bincam is still on the loose-- and what happens to the money?

I won't give away all the beats of the ending. Yet any experienced Lupin-watcher should know that all four of the tricky thieves have at times been capable of acting altruistically, though rarely without losing sight of their own monetary bottom-line, so the conclusion won't be a total surprise. Nevertheless, as Lupin himself points out, Fujiko undertakes a mission-- totally unrelated to her scam-- to research Bincam's strange power and to take him down, for no reason but to keep him from ever getting back on Gene's trail. In other words, her act of playing "mother" may have awakened a "mama bear" instinct in her that runs counter to her acquisitive nature. Bincam's supernatural-seeming power is explained as something akin to the old Persian story of "poison maidens" whose bodies get saturated with poisons so as to make them lethal to normal humans. But Fujiko only relates this observation during her solo fight with Bincam-- which is fairly long in comparison to most of the lady thief's blink-and-miss-them combat-scenes. She does triumph mostly through her feminine wiles, but that seems entirely in line with her normal proclivities.

Since I've already referenced THE MYSTERY OF MAMO above, I should add that one of the technical accomplishments of the villain there was cloning, and it's strongly implied that Bincam was a clone, who from childhood has been altered by some technology into a "poison man" killer.