The film stars an ensemble cast featuring Shun Oguri, Jerry Yan, Tetsuji Tamayama, Gō Ayano, Meisa Kuroki and Tadanobu Asano.

A trio of thugs led by Michael - Royal, Saber and Maria - steal the necklace and kill Jiro and Dawson, apparently in revenge for "Edward Lam", resulting in the disbanding of The Works.

He then meets Interpol Inspector Koichi Zenigata, who informs him that Michael, using the alias Georgio Zhang, is arranging a major auction with Momrachiao Pramuk, the chairman of Navarone Security and a crime lord in secret.

Disheartened, Michael offers to join Lupin's gang to steal back the Crimson Heart and ruby from the Ark, Pramuk's stronghold, and is accepted.

Monkey Punch and Yu Yamada (Shun Oguri's wife) make cameo appearances as a passenger and air hostess respectively on Lupin and Jigen's flight from Japan to Thailand.

[5][6][7] In 2003, Schindler’s List and Minority Report producer Gerald R. Molen, through his production company WhiteLight Entertainment, purchased the live-action film adaptation rights to the Lupin III franchise.

[8] A year later, David Ranes and Chet Thomas were named as the film’s screenwriters, and the release date was set as being late spring 2006.

In 2011, Japanese producer Mataichirō Yamamoto acquired the adaptation rights, and hired Ryuhei Kitamura, with whom he had previously collaborated with on Azumi, to co-write a new screenplay with him and direct the film.

Over "three or four months", the pair extensively studied the franchise by reading the manga and watching the anime adaptations before deciding that their film would not be directly based on any of them, and would serve as a modernized origin story for the Lupin Gang.

They also decided that the adaptation would be a heist film, and considered a variety of artefacts that could serve as a unique MacGuffin, such as a "cursed diamond from the Smithsonian" and an "ancient Soviet tank with a giant treasure".

[14] According to Kitamura, creative tensions between himself and Yamamoto were high during development; the director noted that the producer/writer "want[ed] to go in all different directions", and considered removing the comedic elements of Lupin III from the film.

[13] Filming began on October 3, 2013, and included scenes shot in Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines, before moving to Thailand for two months.

Areas frequently targeted for criticism were the film’s supporting characters, screenplay, cinematography and editing (especially in the action scenes), costume design and soundtrack.

The film was also criticized for having most of its dialogue performed in English (resulting in poor delivery and intonation of numerous lines by its Asian cast members), and for overall squandering its potential as an adaptation of Monkey Punch's manga.

[23] Writing for Kotaku, Richard Eisenbeis described Lupin the 3rd as “both a Terrible Adaptation and a Horrible Film”, criticizing the script’s numerous plot holes (namely the absurdity behind the buy/sell auction between Michael and Pramuk, in which a live studio audience becomes a “room full of witnesses for illegal dealings”), Kitamura’s “nauseating” direction of the action scenes, and the impractical costumes worn by Lupin, Saber and Maria.

Eisenbeis concluded his review by describing Lupin the 3rd as “nothing but a schlock action movie; and while 20 years ago it might have been acceptable among the horde of similar films, that boat has long since set sail”.

Bramhall criticized the inclusion of Goemon, “for no other reason than he’s obviously also from the manga”, the convoluted and exposition-heavy storyline, and described the action scenes as “the Hallmark Channel versions of the back seat car fight from The Raid 2, the Donnie Yen vs. Wu Jing fight from Sha Po Lang, and the car chase from The Matrix Reloaded”, lamenting that Japan’s need for its mainstream films to be shown on television as holiday specials frequently results in derivative and diluted productions.