Jigen Daisuke - A Stylish Action Movie Based on Character from the Famous Lupin the 3rd Manga Series

This new movie on Prime Video was released two days ago but as I already decided to watch another film on different streaming platform, I only watched it yesterday. I was interested as this looked like one of those nice action genre. Anyway I'll get straight to it now.

Brief Story Line

Daisuke Jigen (Tetsuji Tamayama - Ajin: Demi Human, Samurai Gourmet TV series etc) was the legendary gunman who had been going around the world for years. But when he felt his gun no longer had the best aim, Daisuke was told to search for the rumored best Gunmaker in the world located in small town in Japan. However, Daisuke's plan went awry when he finally met with Yaguchi (Mitsuko Kusabue - Miyamoto Musashi etc) who instead of repairing his gun, requested him to help a young girl named Oto (Kotoka Maki - Burn the House Down TV series etc).

Despite his reluctance, Daisuke still did his best to protect Oto who was being chased by a ruthless criminal Adele (Yoko Maki - The Princess Blade, Voice: 110 Emergency Control Room TV series etc) and her large army.

So what would happen to Daisuke and Oto? You could find out in this movie.

End of Brief Story Line

OK, this movie was just like I expected. Even though I was not familiar with this character at all since I never watched the anime or read manga of Lupin the Third where he appeared, I already knew that his ability was in gunmanship. And it was clearly shown in the beginning of the movie. However, after that scene, there was a feeling that the film was moving in a bit slow pace and not really clear where it was heading. It did not help when lots of scenes were done at night and felt very dark.

Little by little though, I start to enjoy it better especially when Daisuke met with Oto. From that moment on, the film felt lighter and there was a bit of heart warming feeling watching their interaction which grew more as the story progressed. There was even one surprisingly funny scene involving the shop owners of the shopping street and another one related to the notebook which made me smiled.

What amazed me was the finale started in the last one third of the movie and considering it had duration of around 2 hours, it was pretty long. Obviously it was fantastic for me cause I could enjoy watching Daisuke did his amazing stunts longer. I like Tetsuji Tamayama's portrayal as Daisuke in here cause as he gave an aura of cool, kind of charming and a bit suave. His gun shooting ability was superb and supported by expert hand to hand fighting capability which really made him just entertaining to watch. Btw, he actually reprised this role from the 2014 Lupin the 3rd live-action movie. 

While I watched the closing credits, I noticed the writers were Yoshimasa Akamatsu (Rogue etc) and Monkey Punch the creator of the manga who already passed away since 2019. I like the directing style of Hajime Hashimoto (Signal: The Movie, Hokusai etc) as he managed to make it a stylish action movie, except for one scene involving Adele in the middle which seem to have a bit of a flaw. I was also a bit unsatisfied with the climax as it felt a bit anticlimactic, but as a whole it was still very entertaining. Oh before the end credit, there was a scene that I think related to the manga/anime but I am not sure cause I have not read/seen it before.

Aside from the names I mentioned above, there were also other support cast like Masatoshi Nagase (Musuko, Sotsugyo TV series etc) as Kawashima, Eugene Nomura as Shozo Imoda and few others in minor roles. But the one that really caught my attention was definitely the young Kotoka Maki who gave a convincing performance. I also like her chemistry with Tetsuji Tamayama which was an important part as it made me believe why he would do his best to save her.

Overall I think the movie was entertaining if you are fans of stylish action type. It reminded me a bit of those John Woo's older movies that starred Chow Yun Fat. The plot might not be the most original but the story telling was good enough. The pace could have been fasten a bit in the beginning and the dark scenes might need a bit of brightening up for me personally, but not up to the level of disturbing. And fans of Lupin the Third series who Jigen Daisuke would be happy to see him given his own movie even though it took 9 years to do it. So if you are interested, you could give this a try as it is available on Prime Video.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars