It’s always a dilemma for movie-makers when it comes to adapting much-loved franchises. While there is a need to please the fans and respect the source material, there is also the huge task of making it appeal to the masses. When it was announced that the popular manga and anime Dragonball by Akira Toriyama would be hitting the big screen, many had doubts. Hardly surprising, as most attempts at adapting anime to Hollywood have failed.
Dragonball Evolution revolves around young warrior Goku (Justin Chatwin), who accepts a quest by his dying adoptive grandfather Grandpa Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) to find the great Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat) and find the seven Dragon Balls. This is to prevent the recently-escaped evil Lord Piccolo (James Marsters), from using them to destroy all life on Earth. It appears that when all seven Dragon Balls are united, they grant the bearer a single wish. Along the way, Goku is joined by Bulma (Emmy Rossum), who is out to get Lord Piccolo for stealing her father’s Dragon Ball. Goku undergoes training with Master Roshi in order to prepare himself in facing Lord Piccolo. He is also later taught to use a powerful move called the Kamehameha. Other notable characters from the manga are thief Yamcha (Joon Park) and Goku’s love interest Chi Chi (Jamie Chung).
The movie is rather short, running at approximately one-and-a-half hours, so there wasn’t much character development or deep storyline to speak of, with everything running at a steady pace. The fans might be relieved to know that the basic storyline of Dragonball was there, but might get annoyed with the unnecessary changes made. Goku going to high school should top the most annoying and pointless change of all. Another odd change was Goku learning to master using the Kamehameha with Chi Chi as motivation, although I found it kind of cute. Despite appearing much younger, Master Roshi played surprisingly well, retaining his pervert personality, with poor Bulma being the victim. Yamcha and Bulma are possibly the closest characters to their manga counterparts, especially with Rossum doing a brilliant portrayal. And while they both do hint at their inevitable oncoming relationship, it was done rather cheesily. In fact quite a lot of the movie’s lines were cheesy.
Lord Piccolo and his aide Mai (Eriko Tamura) have an almost nonexistent backstory, leaving the audience in the dark over who they really are. They do some rather awesome action sequences though. The CGi in Dragonball Evolution isn’t groundbreaking, but works well. Some, like Lord Piccolo’s ship look quite artificial, while others like the final battle between Goku and Lord Piccolo sees plenty of firebolts and explosions. At least Goku’s Kamehameha didn’t disappoint (although it did differ from the original source).
Did I mention the girls were awesome here? Rossum was super hawt in a different way from her appearances in The Day After Tomorrow and Phantom of the Opera. She showed confidence, and kick-ass attitude while Chung was great herself, oozing with a mind-boggling mix of cuteness and sexiness. She sizzled throughout the entire movie and reminded me a lot of KARA's Seung-Heon. Tamura was also cool, in an evil, bad-ass kinda way. The girls earned this movie an extra star for their presence alone.
All in all, Dragonball Evolution turned out quite okay. There was action, adventure, humor and forced romance. One could argue that it needed more all-out fights like the manga, but perhaps there was a risk of over-doing it. Fans should give it a try, think of it as an alternate-universe Dragonball saga. While there was a feeling of some missed opportunities, oddly, I actually felt entertained.
Oh, and please be smart and not leave the cinema hall until after the ending theme song (which is sung by Ayumi Hamasaki by the way), as you might miss a little something if you do.
4 out of 5 Stars
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