Counter Review - DragonBall: Evolution (2009)
http://firefox.org/news/articles/2727/1/Counter-Review---DragonBall-Evolution-2009/Page1.html
Adrian Tallent
A former student of Spartanburg Technical College and overall geek, I enjoy listening to music, reading books, playing video games, and watching movies. Sometimes I write about them.
By Adrian Tallent
Published on 04/21/2009
There are no pronounced original characters in this film, and the main characters that made it into the screenplay are, for the most part, true to their counterparts in the manga and anime. Chow Yun-Fat makes an excellent Master Roshi despite looking nothing like him, and Emmy Rossum as Bulma was a large part of what made the film. Justin Chatwin’s Son Goku is a little awkward; as his being in high school requires him to not be a total idiot, which Goku was in the manga. However, he still manages the role with a kind of good-hearted naiveté, transferring some of that awkwardness into the character itself. James Marsters, who played Spike of Buffy fame, makes an ok Piccolo; who seems suitably menacing…partly because his characterization isn’t as over-the-top as it is with most of the other characters, making this Piccolo seem very down-to-Earth despite all the craziness that is going on around him. Jamie Chung makes a passive Chi-Chi, and Joon Park as a candidate for Yamcha makes me scratch my head. It’s ok though, as his was only a token role anyways. Bafflingly, Mai, played by Eriko Tamura, is also included as Piccolo's sidekick. Characters who's roles where only fairly incidental in the early Dragonball series where left out entirely, including Krillen; although considering that this is a bread-and-butter adaptation of the core of Dragonball, it can be excused, and it works.
With a series as high-energy as Dragonball, it’s the special effects that will make or break the efforts, and I am sorry to say that this film definitely shows its small budget in places. But it is far from being completely laughable. The ki-attacks, especially the famous Kamehameha Wave, look half-assed, and Piccolo’s flying machine (one of Emperor Pilaff’s from the manga …they sort of combined Pilaff’s saga with Piccolo Diamoh’s,) is obvious CGI. Other things are well-done, such as Bulma’s various Capsule vehicles and tech gadgets, and the fighting choreography is good too. There is a fight between Goku and some bullies from school that seems very reminiscent of the original series, something that I haven’t experienced from an adaptation in quite some time. The final battle with Piccolo Diamoh is plenty over-the-top, which is to be expected from a series like Dragonball.
So, in totality, I would say this was a good film. I was surprised at how true to the source material it turned out to be, in spite of the obvious “Americanizing” of the tale. Earlier in the review, I mentioned that it was a good thing that they did this with Dragonball, and the reason for that is that when they do the sequel, they can go into DragonBall Z lore without having to take too many liberties, as the character’s basic backgrounds are established quite handily by Dragonball: Evolution. Indeed, the sequel has already been announced to have an epic budget, which leads me to believe it may end up being the movie it could have been had things gone right the first time.
Hard Stats:
Producer: 20th Century Fox
Director: James Wong
Screenwriter: Ben Ramsey
Cast:
Justin Chatwin - Son Goku
James Marsters - Piccolo Diamoh
Chow Yun-Fat - Muten Roshi
Emmy Rossum - Bulma Briefs
Joon Park - Yamcha
Jamie Chung - Chi-Chi
Eriko Tamura - Mai
Sources: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1098327/, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/04/dragonball-star-no-one-wants-to-make-a-movie-that-people-will-hate.html, http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/AmazingAdrian/Stuff/LIVEACTIONSUPERSAIYAN.jpg
* http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/AmazingAdrian/Stuff/DBZMOVIETEASER.jpg
* * http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/AmazingAdrian/Stuff/PICCOLOFROMTHEMOVIE.jpg
Not nearly as bad as the rumors indicate, but still takes some getting used to; a review from a hardcore fan.
The world's most popular manga makes it to the big screen, but did they get it right?
DragonBall: Evolution has been out for a few weeks now, and many of the people going in to see the film are going to be ignorant of its history unless if they were of the most hardcore of the DragonBall/Z/GT fans while the show was still being aired in the States.
Rumors of a film began going around at the height of DragonBall Z’s popularity in America. For the first time, Cartoon Network had gotten the rights to air the entire series, a long and arduous project; since the series was not only of an intimidating length, but the latter half was just about entirely untouched by western hands. American audiences had to wait as, little by little, new sections of the series (dubbed “sagas” by Dragonball enthusiasts) became available for American broadcasting thanks to Texas-based dubbing and import processing studio Viz. The end result was that DragonBall Z alone took about a decade to air in its entirety. Fans grew up with the characters, and the show’s popularity was able to snowball into an almost palpable force that people liked to ridicule on the Internet.
The original incarnation of what is today DragonBall: Evolution was very ambitious. 20th Century Fox originally bought rights to the franchise some time during the late 90’s, and began talks with manga-ka and series creator Akira Toryiama. The original idea was to open with the Saiyan Saga of Dragonball Z, and then have a number of sequels for each of the subsequent major sagas (Freeza, Cell, and Buu, named after the major villains). The film was given a large budget and went into pre-production sometime around 2000 to 2001 (*). It was here that the film began to stall. The big name actors that the studio was originally going for showed an intense disinterest in lending their talents to the film. At least three Bulma candidates turned down the role, and Hugh Jackman (best known as the actor behind Wolverine), who had been given the role of Goku, left the project to work on the second and third X-men films instead. The film did retain some major players, however; an actor from the ever-popular StarGate series was chosen to play Piccolo (**) and rumors surfaced that The Rock (Scorpion King, Wrestling figure) had expressed interest in playing Cell. Rumors at the time were that Tom Welling, who played the lead role in the hit series Smallville, had been tapped to replace Hugh Jackman as Goku.
After a great many amount of actor related delays and setbacks, the film moved into production. Cast and crew were sent to a remote area to begin filming, teasers were released, but the movie ran out of money and was ultimately dropped by 20th Century Fox. There was both a sigh of relief and disappointment from the collective, and the film was immediately chalked up as a loss. Nearly half a year would go by before rumors would surface that Stephen Chow, the director of Shaolin Soccer, had an intense interest in producing the film himself, and had entered negotiations with 20th Century Fox to allow him to revive whatever they had been working on. These rumors were only half right.
Rumors of a film began going around at the height of DragonBall Z’s popularity in America. For the first time, Cartoon Network had gotten the rights to air the entire series, a long and arduous project; since the series was not only of an intimidating length, but the latter half was just about entirely untouched by western hands. American audiences had to wait as, little by little, new sections of the series (dubbed “sagas” by Dragonball enthusiasts) became available for American broadcasting thanks to Texas-based dubbing and import processing studio Viz. The end result was that DragonBall Z alone took about a decade to air in its entirety. Fans grew up with the characters, and the show’s popularity was able to snowball into an almost palpable force that people liked to ridicule on the Internet.
The original incarnation of what is today DragonBall: Evolution was very ambitious. 20th Century Fox originally bought rights to the franchise some time during the late 90’s, and began talks with manga-ka and series creator Akira Toryiama. The original idea was to open with the Saiyan Saga of Dragonball Z, and then have a number of sequels for each of the subsequent major sagas (Freeza, Cell, and Buu, named after the major villains). The film was given a large budget and went into pre-production sometime around 2000 to 2001 (*). It was here that the film began to stall. The big name actors that the studio was originally going for showed an intense disinterest in lending their talents to the film. At least three Bulma candidates turned down the role, and Hugh Jackman (best known as the actor behind Wolverine), who had been given the role of Goku, left the project to work on the second and third X-men films instead. The film did retain some major players, however; an actor from the ever-popular StarGate series was chosen to play Piccolo (**) and rumors surfaced that The Rock (Scorpion King, Wrestling figure) had expressed interest in playing Cell. Rumors at the time were that Tom Welling, who played the lead role in the hit series Smallville, had been tapped to replace Hugh Jackman as Goku.
After a great many amount of actor related delays and setbacks, the film moved into production. Cast and crew were sent to a remote area to begin filming, teasers were released, but the movie ran out of money and was ultimately dropped by 20th Century Fox. There was both a sigh of relief and disappointment from the collective, and the film was immediately chalked up as a loss. Nearly half a year would go by before rumors would surface that Stephen Chow, the director of Shaolin Soccer, had an intense interest in producing the film himself, and had entered negotiations with 20th Century Fox to allow him to revive whatever they had been working on. These rumors were only half right.
The movie rises above all the nasty rumors, even though hardly anyone believes in it.
The director was actually James Wong, who had nothing to do with martial arts comedy Kung-Fu Hustle, but had directed the martial arts thriller with Jet-Li, “The One.” So things began to look up for Dragonball fans, until the ugly ugly rumors began emerging from the studio. Rumors that not only had the new director thrown out all of Fox’s previous work on the film, forcing the team to start from scratch with a reduced budget; but that he had made the film into his personal playground, with little interest in whether or not the movie actually did justice to or even resembled the source material. Rumors were rampant that the film would take place in a high school, for example, throwing out traditional Dragonball villains in favor of schoolyard bullies created by the director. Also rumored was that the director had replaced major characters like Krillen with characters of his own making and took liberties with established design such as Piccolo’s skin color (which was yellow in leaked pre-production shots). These rumors, whether they were true or not, spawned a massive petition to stop Fox from making the film and lead the movie to become the most hated film of 2009 according to dubious Internet awards; even nearly a year before the film was to be released.
But this is a review, and now that the history lesson is over…did it live up to these tremendously low expectations? My answer is no, and that is a good thing, both for Mr. Wong and 20th Century Fox.
It is important to note that the biggest change made to the film since its first conception was to start with the story of DragonBall as opposed to the first saga of DragonBall Z. In fact, it is because of this change that many of the liberties the director did take with the film seem to work. DragonBall is unlike its sequel series in that it was supposed to be a re-telling of the Asian Buddhist legend, “Journey to the West”, with martial arts comedy thrown in. In the manga, Son Goku is analogous to the legendary Monkey King, who sets out on a quest to gather several magical artifacts; in this case the Dragonballs, which will grant any one wish when you gather all seven.
The disparity between the film and the manga is not quite as pronounced as the rumors would lead one to believe; and once you actually see the movie, you will begin to understand why they took it in the directions that they did. In the film, Goku is a high school student living with his grandfather, Gohan, who is teaching him his trade in martial arts. Goku however, only tolerates his grandfather’s attempts to teach him ki techniques. He’d much rather be a typical student like his peers. For his birthday, he is given the four-star Dragonball, and doesn’t think much of it until the evil Piccolo Diamoh, who has caused much death and destruction in times past, kills Gohan while looking for the Dragonball. In order to bring Piccolo to justice, Goku travels to train under Master Roshi, before setting off on a quest to find the Dragonballs before Piccolo does, accompanied by tech-savvy Dragonball seeker Bulma, who has her own reasons for hunting down the mysterious balls.
But this is a review, and now that the history lesson is over…did it live up to these tremendously low expectations? My answer is no, and that is a good thing, both for Mr. Wong and 20th Century Fox.
It is important to note that the biggest change made to the film since its first conception was to start with the story of DragonBall as opposed to the first saga of DragonBall Z. In fact, it is because of this change that many of the liberties the director did take with the film seem to work. DragonBall is unlike its sequel series in that it was supposed to be a re-telling of the Asian Buddhist legend, “Journey to the West”, with martial arts comedy thrown in. In the manga, Son Goku is analogous to the legendary Monkey King, who sets out on a quest to gather several magical artifacts; in this case the Dragonballs, which will grant any one wish when you gather all seven.
The disparity between the film and the manga is not quite as pronounced as the rumors would lead one to believe; and once you actually see the movie, you will begin to understand why they took it in the directions that they did. In the film, Goku is a high school student living with his grandfather, Gohan, who is teaching him his trade in martial arts. Goku however, only tolerates his grandfather’s attempts to teach him ki techniques. He’d much rather be a typical student like his peers. For his birthday, he is given the four-star Dragonball, and doesn’t think much of it until the evil Piccolo Diamoh, who has caused much death and destruction in times past, kills Gohan while looking for the Dragonball. In order to bring Piccolo to justice, Goku travels to train under Master Roshi, before setting off on a quest to find the Dragonballs before Piccolo does, accompanied by tech-savvy Dragonball seeker Bulma, who has her own reasons for hunting down the mysterious balls.
The acting is surprisingly good, and there's room left for a sequel that has tons of potential.
There are no pronounced original characters in this film, and the main characters that made it into the screenplay are, for the most part, true to their counterparts in the manga and anime. Chow Yun-Fat makes an excellent Master Roshi despite looking nothing like him, and Emmy Rossum as Bulma was a large part of what made the film. Justin Chatwin’s Son Goku is a little awkward; as his being in high school requires him to not be a total idiot, which Goku was in the manga. However, he still manages the role with a kind of good-hearted naiveté, transferring some of that awkwardness into the character itself. James Marsters, who played Spike of Buffy fame, makes an ok Piccolo; who seems suitably menacing…partly because his characterization isn’t as over-the-top as it is with most of the other characters, making this Piccolo seem very down-to-Earth despite all the craziness that is going on around him. Jamie Chung makes a passive Chi-Chi, and Joon Park as a candidate for Yamcha makes me scratch my head. It’s ok though, as his was only a token role anyways. Bafflingly, Mai, played by Eriko Tamura, is also included as Piccolo's sidekick. Characters who's roles where only fairly incidental in the early Dragonball series where left out entirely, including Krillen; although considering that this is a bread-and-butter adaptation of the core of Dragonball, it can be excused, and it works.
With a series as high-energy as Dragonball, it’s the special effects that will make or break the efforts, and I am sorry to say that this film definitely shows its small budget in places. But it is far from being completely laughable. The ki-attacks, especially the famous Kamehameha Wave, look half-assed, and Piccolo’s flying machine (one of Emperor Pilaff’s from the manga …they sort of combined Pilaff’s saga with Piccolo Diamoh’s,) is obvious CGI. Other things are well-done, such as Bulma’s various Capsule vehicles and tech gadgets, and the fighting choreography is good too. There is a fight between Goku and some bullies from school that seems very reminiscent of the original series, something that I haven’t experienced from an adaptation in quite some time. The final battle with Piccolo Diamoh is plenty over-the-top, which is to be expected from a series like Dragonball.
So, in totality, I would say this was a good film. I was surprised at how true to the source material it turned out to be, in spite of the obvious “Americanizing” of the tale. Earlier in the review, I mentioned that it was a good thing that they did this with Dragonball, and the reason for that is that when they do the sequel, they can go into DragonBall Z lore without having to take too many liberties, as the character’s basic backgrounds are established quite handily by Dragonball: Evolution. Indeed, the sequel has already been announced to have an epic budget, which leads me to believe it may end up being the movie it could have been had things gone right the first time.
Hard Stats:
Producer: 20th Century Fox
Director: James Wong
Screenwriter: Ben Ramsey
Cast:
Justin Chatwin - Son Goku
James Marsters - Piccolo Diamoh
Chow Yun-Fat - Muten Roshi
Emmy Rossum - Bulma Briefs
Joon Park - Yamcha
Jamie Chung - Chi-Chi
Eriko Tamura - Mai
Sources: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1098327/, http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2009/04/dragonball-star-no-one-wants-to-make-a-movie-that-people-will-hate.html, http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/AmazingAdrian/Stuff/LIVEACTIONSUPERSAIYAN.jpg
* http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/AmazingAdrian/Stuff/DBZMOVIETEASER.jpg
* * http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v434/AmazingAdrian/Stuff/PICCOLOFROMTHEMOVIE.jpg