Dragonball Evolution Review

(As a huge fan of this, I have potentially unreasonable expectations for this film. I feel it will be more important to focus on whether the film lines up with the spirit of the manga itself more than exact consistency with narrative and canon. There will be spoilers btw, since the manga spoilers are worth keeping secret)

I’ve been distracted from this project by the series of Marvel and DC animated films I’ve reviewed in the last week. But now I’ll try my hand at confronting something more in my area of knowledge, manga. I always wanted to do a review on Dragonball: Evolution. I had heard mostly bad reviews on this and the most positive review said that it was a good action film. This is a difficult task to undertake, since there is a risk that my standards for a film adapting such a great manga/anime could be too high. But I will attempt to take it as it is and note the discrepancies as I go without being overly critical of the film or accusing it to be completely without merit. So then, onto plot synopsis.

We begin with a backstory to what the rest of the film hinges on. Lord Piccolo and his disciple Oozaru waged a war against humanity to conquer the world. And they nearly succeeded, but for the use of the Mafuba that sealed Piccolo in the earth (even though he was originally sealed in a magical rice cooker. This time it’s underground in a metal teapot). And now 2000 years later, Goku, adopted son of Gohan, wise old master, trains with his elder. And afterwards he complains about how he’s picked on at school. His grandfather gives him sagely advice about fighting and a birthday present in the form of the Four Star Dragonball. With all 7, one can ask for one perfect wish; the usual McGuffin subplot. Goku then goes to school (by bike, no less) and is subsequently picked on after the bullies almost run him over and crush his bike. We finally see Piccolo, though a plot killer is that we never get an explanation of how he got out. He just broke the seal after 2000 years for some reason. He’s searching for the Dragonballs too. We shift back to the highschool where Goku is crushing on a girl named Chi Chi. He helps her with mechanical locker problems and is invited to a party. Upon entering the party that evening, the bullies shoo him away, but he decides to try to fight, in a way that ends up with the bullies hurting each other as he dodges every move they make. And their leader, in attempting to beat him with a lead pipe, smashes up his car. Back at the house, Gohan is attacked by Piccolo and the house is collapsed on top of him. Goku, sensing this, returns home and finds his dying grandfather, who tells him to seek out Master Roshi. Goku searches through the house, and runs into Bulma who sneaks in, trying to find her promethium orb, otherwise called a Dragonball. But she confuses the five star for the four star. The two decide to journey together and find Roshi, who gives them his Dragonball and agrees to go with them to find the rest while he trains Goku. They go to a sacred temple, but find it overrun by other fighters training, so they move on to find a Dragonball nearby. But they get trapped in a sinkhole made by Yamcha, the desert thief, who is eventually forced by Roshi to help them find a tunnel. Following it, they find the next Dragonball, but it’s up on a pillar surrounded by lava. Previously elsewhere, Piccolo gets his blood drawn and makes a bunch of ugly reptilian soldiers who intercept the group as they’re trying to get the ball. Goku makes a bridge of corpses across the lava, since they can’t regenerate in lava and gets the Dragonball, knocking away Piccolo’s assistant Mai as she tries to steal it. At Roshi’s suggestion they go to the city where the fighting tournament is to be held, where Roshi gets another Mafuba Jar made by his monk friends, while Goku, Bulma, and Yamcha mill around the town. Goku sees Chi Chi fight in the tournament and Bulma and Yamcha’s romantic moment is broken by a guy cutting a chicken’s head off (true boner killer material). Roshi later trains Goku in the Kame Hame Ha, the highest level of airbending (they use the term, so it’s not me plagiarizing Avatar: The Last Airbender). Goku eventually succeeds in mastering it with Chi Chi’s incentive to make out (yes, that’s the motivation. Teenagers…). Later that night, Mai, disguised as Chi Chi, steals the three Dragonballs and escapes after Goku, unable to tell the difference, hits the real Chi Chi fighting the disguised Mai. He has to be resuscitated by Roshi, since Mai shot him with a green bullet of some sort (Kryptonite? Nah). The group goes after Piccolo, Mafuba Jar in hand and the fight begins. Goku is told by Piccolo that he is Oozaru and as the complete solar eclipse (spoken of while Goku was fantasizing about Chi Chi in a field of flowers eating strawberries) begins, Goku transforms and starts raging out of control. Roshi attempts the Mafuba, but Piccolo interrupts the process and Roshi subsequently dies, though he does help Goku control himself and revert back to human form. Elsewhere, Yamcha helps Bulma as she sucks at her fight with Mai and almost gets her Dragonball (that she picked up during Piccolo’s ceremony) stolen. After Goku fights and defeats Piccolo (not impaling him with a huge Kamehameha powered punch, but handing him his ass anyway) they use the 7 Dragonballs to bring Roshi back to life and they begin their search all over again. Before this, Goku goes to make out with Chi Chi and then in a typical lover’s spat, they have a hand to hand martial arts duel to settle the argument (totally normal). And the film ends abruptly there, but we get an ending credits scene leaving the film open to a sequel.

Characterizations are pretty inconsistent in terms of the canon, but you get the general idea of the character, even if personality is altered in a few cases. Take Goku, who controversially enough, is portrayed by a white guy (which isn’t the real problem). His character reminds me of his future son, who has awkward moments in high school and girl troubles. His father’s toughness and attitude are there, but the fact that they tried to make the film more accessible to a modern audience means they pulled the plot of Dragonball and put it into the Dragonball Z universe where there’s more advanced technology. The original Goku, isolated and innocent, was not one to be concerned with popularity or sex, making many fans of the manga/anime predictably rip on the destruction of Goku’s character. While I agree, it’s probably better for Goku in this modern adaptation to be more accessible to teenage fans and behave like Gohan from Dragonball Z. Piccolo, our main antagonist, is portrayed well, though many fans of Dragonball Z might think he’s Piccolo Jr, who is actually the son of the character in this adaptation, Demon King Piccolo, a primary antagonist in Dragonball. The lust for power and his cold nature come out great. The film makes a reference to Piano, Drum and Tambourine; sons spit out by King Piccolo in the manga/anime and eventually killed. Though the reference is awkward, it helped retain my faith in the film. Grandpa Gohan (namesake of the Gohan referenced previously) is done well, though he reminds me too much of the grandfather from Three Ninjas. His role is minor and yet his influence on Goku is important for how the rest of the film plays out. As important as he was, they didn’t mess him up, which gets kudos from me. Bulma is hardly changed, though she didn’t really take a fighting role in the series. Her personality and balance of feminine charm and technical genius is presented well. Chi Chi, the other female lead, is good even if they rip her father out of the story. Her father in the anime/manga was Ox King, a fellow training partner of Gohan in the past under Master Roshi. She fights well and her relationship with Goku, though rushed, does keep with the canon. On a side note, Goku’s innocence and Chi Chi’s insistence as a 12 year old about getting married would’ve been a fun thing to try to portray if the film was more along the lines of the original manga/anime. Yamcha is a minor character, but not depicted as well as I would hope for all his unimportance to the plot. The original was a badass desert thief that used the Wolf Fang Fist and a sword. This version uses traps and has little to no fighting experience. His surfer accent is out of place as well, but at least they keep his relationship with Bulma so as not to destroy his reputation completely. His partner Puar, the floating cat that can transform, is missing, but I imagine the budget was directed elsewhere so he was cut out to begin with (along with Oolong, the transforming pig anthro). Master Roshi is done well, though my first reaction was “Why does he look like a derelict instead of a hermit?” He’s definitely a modernized version, but his perverted nature is still depicted well with the shirt he is first seen wearing, the bikini magazine in his house and his interactions with Bulma (sexual harassment and all). And his role in the series is the same, training Goku and sacrificing himself to try to defeat Piccolo. The idea of the 7 mystics that used the Mafuba in the past could’ve been avoided and replaced with another reference to the series. Master Roshi’s master, Mutaito, was the original one who sealed Piccolo, so why not inject him in as Roshi’s ancestor or something instead of making a painfully obvious parallel to the other set of 7? Mai’s involvement is important, though she never gets a name drop. Not to mention her depiction in the comics was not able to shapeshift and dodge bullets. And her partner (talking humanoid fox) and her original employer are both absent. Emperor Pilaf was a short little blue goblin like thing and just comic relief in the manga, never a real threat. There are other characters, but not that are in the series. Sifu Norris is odd, not to mention the black bully in Goku’s high school. But moving on.

The primary theme centers on Goku’s journey of self discovery. Progressively you get hints that Goku is connected to Oozaru and then the revelation that he is Oozaru doesn’t surprise you coming from Piccolo’s mouth. His grandpa also emphasizes Goku having faith in who he is; which is the crux of his eventual conclusion that he is both Oozaru and Goku and yet maintain the human form without losing control. There is an initial division between his perceived role as Piccolo’s servant and his familial love for his adoptive grandfather. But as he concludes that he is Goku primarily and that his duty to Piccolo will not rule him, it completes him as a character, however different he may be from Goku in the manga/anime, unaware of his past transformations and only realizing it in DBZ. Either way, the investigation of Goku’s internal conflict and resolution thereof is progressive but not too obvious.

Overall, the film would probably get a 3, my lowest rank so far of films overall. The action is subdued and the romance dominates male/female character interactions. And one of the most difficult to accept things is the unexplained resurrection of Piccolo. The concluding scene involves Piccolo as well, but sequel material is different. If you don’t give an explanation of how the bad guy gets free from his imprisonment, it kind of ruins the viewer’s mood of suspense at the antagonist’s arrival. The modernization of the film is probably what gets it a recommendation from me at all, but I’d have to be fair overall. The differences from the manga are there for expediency’s sake. If you tried to portray all of Dragonball even with cutting out minor scenes, you’d have a trilogy on your hands already. The real objection I have is the lack of resonance the film has with Dragonball as a series. Dragonball Z is the more popular series with many and this film takes advantage of that by making the feel more sci fi than fantasy, which was what Dragonball Z had to appeal. You felt like Dragonball was more like a fairy tale or fantasy quest. With this film, it seems like they tried to give the magical background of Dragonball its place with the concepts of Ki, Elements and of course the Dragonballs granting a wish. But there was a strong intent to root the world more in Dragonball Z, where technology was advanced and the rural areas grew smaller and smaller in importance. The title Dragonball Evolution works, though it does deceive fans who think it is trying to bring Dragonball’s story to the screen, when the reality is that it’s bringing more of a Dragonball Z atmosphere. I could rant forever on how this differs from both Dragonball and Dragonball Z, but my general verdict is that the film is a good mix of sci fi and fantasy action, though admittedly taking a bit too much creative license with the original material. So even if you’re new to Dragonball, you could watch this for the feel of a quest to save the world, not unlike Lord of the Rings for instance. Final rating is 3 out of 5 for disappointments and incredulity factor, but an 80-90% recommendation for enjoyment in general. Until next time, Namaste and Aloha.