For those of you who don't know, we faced a TV drought early in the year since many productions being shutdown due to COVID and since most shows that were already shot had already aired. This meant the TV sphere was vacant for some time but this left us with some hidden gems like All Creatures Great and Small, It's a Sin and this.
Lupin is a wonderful show, and like All Creatures Great and Small it's from overseas with none of the cynicism or adult content of premium cable fare like Succession. Lupin feels like the French equivalent to Sherlock, a new re-telling of a famous literary character modified to today's culture to be more with the times. Omar Sy nails it in the role and makes this series such a joy to watch, you're having fun see this character get back at the men who disenfranchised his father. The filmmaking in this batch of episodes is also eye gazing, particularly in the final chapter. If you're into something that has the good guy win, this show is for you. I do hope the writers consider having him go up against Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock, that would be a dream come true.
Review by wolfkinBlockedParent2022-08-31T01:46:20Z
Well darn if that wasn't a lot of fun (10 episodes in). Omar Sy is as great as he always is. His character, Assane, has both tactical skills and strategic ones. There's a lot of world building that you have to be willing to let go and honestly for the absolutely fun time ahead I had no problem with that. Is it laughable that someone with Omar's build and complexion could fade into the background? Yes. He's huge, he's kinda built, and he's very dark. In so many scenes especially in the back half you have to ask if they know what he looks like both in terms of visage and body why aren't they inspecting people who look like him of which there are none. It's a weirdly racially neutral stance considering there are at least strong plot points that involve characters being extremely racist.
This isn't like Sherlock or Elementary where we have a literary character updated and injected into our present time. This is about a man who is obsessed with a literary character and fashions his life after said character. The difference is both minute and unimportant. He's a master thief which is always fun to watch especially since the master thief character is traditionally not one played by the black actor. He has a tiny crew of accomplices and works towards a singular honorable goal. There are ups and downs. Parts that are very believable and stretch what we've seen of modern technology in a TV show, and parts that are so laughably silly if you weren't so invested in wanting to know what happens next you take time to laugh at it. It's not perfect but it's takes itself seriously and visually it's looks gorgeous. I've seen films with worse cinematography lots of them. Paris is a great looking subject and it's filmed beautifully here.