The Legend comes to life....Really? Seriously?
Dragon Ball Evolution
April 10, 2009
Justin Chatwin as Son Goku
Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi
Jaime Chung as Chi Chi
James Marsters as Lord Piccolo
Emmy Rossum as Bulma
I have been a huge Dragon Ball Z fan ever since I watched the series back in the early 90's from Goku's childhood up until the Majin Boo Saga even until the GT series and all of its movies including the latest installment Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods. There have been several live action films of the franchise in the past but to be honest, this has got to be the worst live action film of a very famous Japanese anime ever. Why doesn't Hollywood ever learn from their previous mistakes of making a live action film of famous anime's and have western actors and actresses but please, can we stick with the original characters and story lines to be able to create a magical moment with these films?
First of, why in the blue hell is Goku even attending school here? As we know, Goku has lived in the mountain area together with his grandfather until he passed away and all he knows is fishing and martial arts. They totally messed up his character here. Secondly, his first meeting with Bulma was very much different from the original story. I mean again, Goku has lived his entire childhood in the mountains and doesn't even know what a girl looks like.
The entire cast was a disgrace. How in the heck did they end up chosing these actors anyway? I don't want to be so damn harsh on the Dragon Ball franchise but James Wong and the producers ruined everything big time. Dragon Ball was full of action and comedy and that was missing in the film. No offense to Chow Yun-Fat for his portrayal of Master Roshi but he made Roshi more Chinese than Japanese. Master Roshi is a well respected master of martial arts, and a little bit of a pervert (due to his fantasies of Bulma, Chi Chi and the other women in the DBZ world). Chow tried to portray the role but seems that he was holding back a lot on being a pervert like Roshi was. It was never close to what the original looked like.
Oh I almost forgot, where in the blue hell are Krillin, Woolong, and Puar? Yes we have Yamcha but again bad choice of an actor to play the role. Since when did Yamcha became Korean? It would've been nice if Joon Park's character here was a bit more like the original but it was so crazy. Yamcha here could've shown the fist of the wolf fang technique or even the sokidan technique. Would've been really nice if the characters were as they were but no. This could have been a really nice start of a franchise but I guess they thought things were much better this way.
Plus, what's up with the Kame Hame Ha being able to have such a long procedure before being released into an energy wave? And it can heal a person? Since when was the Kame Hame Ha used to heal an injured person? What they adopted in the techniques and the martial arts was more on Kung Fu instead of Japanese martial arts. When Goku first learned about the Kame Hame Ha it was fantastic in the anime and here it was such an unforgivable thing.
What was Lord Piccolo even doing in this film? He's not even supposed to be the main villain until Goku, Yamcha and Krillin are officially Master Roshi's students and enter the World Martial Arts Tournament. The very first and probably the longest rival of Goku was The Red Ribbon Army. No doubt James Marsters gave a good portrayal of the character but again, with the costume and all that it was a mess.
My Rating
Story: 0.5/5
CGI: 2/5
Costume Design: 0.5/5
If someone who didn't know about Dragon Ball Franchise would probably like this movie. But the majority of people now a days knows that this was a great classic that was made into a live action garbage. I hope that they've learned their lesson and have taken down notes from Rurouni Kenshin and start fresh. Get Japanese actors to portray the characters and make up a good story line. Pick up the pieces and make it magical. I am still hoping they'd reboot this and give some honor to the legendary franchise.
Comments and suggestions are always appreciated. Thank you and have a wonderful day.
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