Overview
Few actors are as charming on-screen as Omar Sy, as everyone who hadn't already realised this fact came to learn earlier this year. The French talent has proven a delight to watch in films such as Micmacs, The Intouchables and Mood Indigo (and in X-Men: Days of Future Past and Jurassic World, too). But he really couldn't be better cast in Lupin — the Paris-set mystery-thriller series inspired by Maurice Leblanc's 1907–36 novels and novellas about the fictional gentleman thief of the same name.
Sy plays Assane Diop, who is introduced as a cleaner working at the Louvre. In flashbacks to recent events and to the character's childhood, viewers learn just why he's at the famous museum — and what has inspired his life of crime as well. The son of a Senegalese immigrant (Fargass Assandé, Eye of the Storm) who once worked for the wealthy Pellegrini family, Assane has a complicated history. He also has a mystery to solve, Marie Antoinette's diamond necklace to steal, police to evade, a messy personal life to sort out and decades worth of vengeance to exact.
When Lupin hit Netflix at the beginning of 2021 and quickly popped into the service's top ten, it started unfurling Diop's story across its initial five episodes. That's only half of the series' current tale, however. After it ended on quite the cliffhanger, there's thankfully more to come — with the French-language series returning for Lupin Part 2 on June 11.
As tends to happen, the streaming platform announced the release date for the next batch of episodes by dropping a trailer for the show's second half. Yes, it's set to be as slick, engrossing and swiftly-paced as the first chapters — as all heist and espionage affairs should be. Based on his engaging performance so far, they should probably all star Sy, too.
Also influential here, though, is filmmaker Louis Leterrier. His resume has more misses than hits, spanning the first two Transporter movies, The Incredible Hulk, Clash of the Titans, Now You See Me and Grimsby. But he brings a deft touch to this series, as he did to the vastly dissimilar The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
Check out the Lupin Part 2 trailer below — which is in English, although we recommend you watch the series itself in its French-language, subtitled, not-dubbed format:
Lupin Part 2 will be available to stream via Netflix on June 11. Part 1 is available to stream now.
Top image: Emmanuel Guimier.