The odds are most people in America by and large have never heard of Lupin The 3rd, so here's a bit of background. Loosely based on French author Maurice Leblanc's suave thief character Arsène Lupin, it's a manga (comic book) written and drawn by Japanese cartoonist Monkey Punch during the late 1960's and through the 1970's.

It spawned several TV anime and movie offshoots during the 1970's and 1980's and has endured to this day in Japan since the 1990's with an annual TV movie airing usually during the summer of each year. Little do most people know that Japanese anime filmmaker extraordinaire Hayao Miyazaki had his start with the franchise, directing several episodes of the original TV series in 1971 and 1972. By the end of the decade, he introduced himself to the world as a surprisingly skilled filmmaker with his debut film Lupin The III: The Castle Of Cagliostro.

Arsene Lupin III is the grandson of the legendary literary French thief who shares his namesake. He, along with his three partners, the gun-toting Daisuke Jigen, the stoic samurai Goemon Iskikawa XIII, and the flirtatious, but often double-crossing Fujiko Mine, travel the globe on adventures of looting and pillaging of priceless treasures as he is constantly pursued by the hapless Japanese Interpol inspector Koichi Zenigata.

This time out, after escaping from a Monaco casino with a bundle of money, Lupin and Jigen soon discover that the money they stole is in fact "goat bills", which are legendarily perfect counterfeit replicas that have the power to shake the economies of whole nations.

Lupin alludes to the fact that during his early days as a thief, he nearly survived certain death trying to pursue the secret to making the perfect counterfeits. Seeking another opportunity to obtain this, he and Jigen make their way to the royal kingdom of Cagliostro.

Soon enough, Lupin rescues a young girl named Clarisse from a group of gangsters, but she is soon captured by the leader of the men and locked away in the castle. Having accidentally obtained the girl's ring, Lupin and Jigen soon discover that Clarisse is the heir to the throne of Cagliostro and Count Cagliostro seeks to wed her against her will in order to obtain the secret family treasure.

With the count seeking out Lupin to retrieve Clarisse's ring, which is the key to the treasure, the thief, along with Jigen, Goemon, and a disguised Fujiko as a member of the royal court, attempts to rescue Clarisse by "stealing her away" from the Count. And when Zenigata tracks down Lupin at Cagliostro, his discovery of the counterfeit operation leads the two longtime enemies to join forces to bring down the Count.

Hayao Miyazaki, who would decades later make anime film classics like Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away, showed his first signs of considerable talent with this film