The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure (DVD)

Just seconds into The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure, something felt off. As Lupin the 3rd jumps down into a room with infrared tripwires surrounding a treasure, I figured he would use a gadget or come up with a good idea to bypass them. Instead, he recklessly runs through them, grabs the statue, and high-tails it out of there. I let it slide as a nice chase scene, where the main plot was explained (collect three statues to get Harimao's treasure, basically), followed. Afterwards, it played out like a typical Lupin storyline, and all seemed well.....

Then the special just started getting goofy, and even more goofy as time went on. Lupin was dumber than usual, Jigen was disturbingly "excited" (he kept "hooooooo!!"-ing early on in the special as he was acting like an idiot), and even Goemon was silly with his insistence on being paid for his part-time services. Now, I don't usually mind the goofiness in other Lupin films, but it became overwhelming at times here. It felt like it was trying to one-up the plot, because when things actually moved, the humor snuck right up on it. The majority of the goofball moments aren't even funny, save for a few shining scenes (like when Lupin used Japanese porn movies to pass a checkpoint). There were even a few absurd moments, like when Lupin had to put together a "puzzle" (putting numbers in order.... wtf?) inside a castle.

Also, you'd think that a movie (ah, screw it, I've tried to avoid calling it that so far) where Lupin partakes in Indiana Jones-esque adventures to track down statues while being chased by Nazis would rock. But, it somehow fell apart in TPoHT. There was A LOT of padding in this special. One instance is the chase scene that starts up 30 minutes in: it involved Lupin flying, boats, Jigen on a bike, Nazis on jet skis, and a helicopter. It could've turned out to be a cool, fast-paced, action-packed moment for the special. However, everything was spread out, and it just went on, and on, and on, and......

Unfortunately, the best moments for me in TPoHT are when Lupin and Goering (a giant, Nazi guy that likes flying in his helicopter) confront each other, and fists start flying. They're probably the roughest scenes in this otherwise lighthearted special, and they last only a few seconds. Overall, The Pursuit of Harimao's Treasure had the potential to be an enjoyable flick with its strong start. But, it begins to fizzle out somewhere in the middle, and the film goes out anticlimactically (the elevator music during the end credits sealed the deal). It's not terrible, but you'd be better off watching something else.

Film Rating: 5/10