Finally saw the dreaded thing

by Goku lamenting from the a Tue May 05, 2009 4:16 am

Yesterday I finally got to see the abovination called DBE (Dragon Ball Exploitation), I bought it a chinese pirate copy for 7 kuai (about 1 us dolar), and it was probably too much to pay, but at least since it was a pirate copy, Im happy to know that my money won´t go anywhere near those bastards pockets.

By now you all have read many reviews or probably seen the movie, so you know all the crap that goes on in it, so I wont narrate the movie again, as I won´t submit you or my mind to go trough the ordeal of reliving this experiense, and if you haven´t seen it and only read reviews I asure you as bad as you see it in your mind, is probably better than the real thing, much better.

So I will just tell you about my own personal experiense watching this movie and some general conments

Ok first of all the production values of this movie are terrible, it is cheap, cheap, cheap, the fact this movie even get a theatrical release amazes me, and shows the lenghts Fox went to keep this charade, it looks like a straight to video movie, or much worse a tv movie of the week, really, I have seen beter special effects on Hallmarck movies.

One very notable example, I saw the Wolverine Bootleged movie, wich is a studio version with the special effects unfinished, there is a scene where you see a CGI plane but is like a rough model, the surfaces haven´t been softened it has no color, etc, well the first time we see piccolo´s ship is like that, like rough unfinished CGI model, is terrible.

The action, oh my god, is laughable, really, the movie opens up with a trainig sequence between Goku and Gohan, and the first thing that comes to mind is how americans don´t know shit about making martial arts sequences, they just seem to be hanging on the wires, like well......people hanging on wires, they don´t even know how to pretend to be flying or walking on air or anything, is awful, and the "fight" choreography well is about what you see in power rangers or something like that.

And then we come to the plot, what plot?, ok I read Ben Ramsey's original script, it is crap, but compared to the actual movie it is a masterpiece of writing, James Wong manged to turn a terrible script into a godawful movie, the story seems like one of those hundreds of movies that came in the 80's about nerdy, rejected boy, who discovers he is the savior of the magical/space kingdom, and that by learning trust in himself manages to defeat the bady, save the world and get the girl, while meeting a bunch of "wacky" friends along the way.

The movie is generic, compleatly generic, just change the names and it can be whatever else, there is nothing there besides the names that identify this story as dragonball.

But Wong dude, the 80's are dead, and those movies sucked.

And what about the setting, nothing is ever said about this being a different world than our own, or even the future, no explanation is given at all of where are we, and the movie jumps from one stupid setting to another with no real sense of space, it all starts at a wanna be version of the future as seen in back to the future 2, from then you go to desserts, volcanoes, a crappy mos esley wanna be street, a freaking third world village in the middle of a freaking city, all to have the climatic fight in the set of the flintsones.

Fans of dragonball know it takes place in another world, a crazy world mixes all sort of genres and influences, but that stands on it´s own because very few things in it resemble real world things, so it helps to the suspension of disbelief.

But here it starts in a normal generic future high school and then they are in pseudo tibetan temple also in another modern western city, and then crossing lava, and there is a village in the middle of the city, and then Yamcha´s jeep fly, WTF, really some random viewer, will find it compleatly stupid and senselees, they would just be waiting to all be a dream, and him to wake up in high school or something, cause this world makes no sense whatsoever.

There is no charcter developement whatsoever, none at all, character are one liner, living props, nothing more. Yamcha wants to rob them, then he just join their party, just beacuse, he probably didn´t have anything else to do.

Piccolo does ABSOLUTELY nothing¡¡¡, nothing at all, he has like 3 lines, all that is explained about him, is he is there, he is bad, thats, it.

His hechwoman is even worse, she is compleatly irrelevant, she always gets her ass kicked, has like two lines of dialogue and she is ugly.

Another irrelevant character is Eddie from Ghostbusters, to tell the truth I was expecting him to be this really lame character with an afro and talking slang, like those black martial artists in blackxplotation movies of the 60's and 70's, he actually looks quite cool as a black monk, with white eyebrows and beard, but who the f..k is he?, why is he there?, he plays no one, his character is based on no one, he is like the head monk of this pseudo tibetan temple in the middle of a city, where they greet each other with hindu blessings and do a hindu mantra as an enchantment (what, if something at least they could have made a chinese or japanese looking bhuddist temple, get their religions straight).

is like they tought, Dragonball does not have enough characters, lets make our own, lets put a dude named Texas Battle as a bully (what?, who?, i still don´t get over this dude´s name Texas Battle and he is not even a wrestler, i toght he was a wrestler, if you are not a wrestler why in heaven are you named Texas Battle?)

The only one that has some sort of story arc is Goku, of course it is something as stupid as control your inner rage and accept yourself, yes we all know those where the pricipal themes of Dragonball, you got it right jamie wong.

Lets see some specificly bad plot points, well the dragonballs grant visions of the future.
by the ways Shen Long is small, really small and baaaaadly done.

uh get this the kame hame ha can be used to light and unlight clandles (if goku wanted to light a candle with a kame hame ha he would have to be the size and the proporsionate power of an ant), yes get a load of this, this was tought to Goku by Chi Chi, yes Chi Chi trained Goku on something, she also said Goku could NOT beat her, oh and she motivated Goku with lust to learn the candle blowing Kame Hame Ha, o this movie gets better and better.

Also the Kame Hame Ha can bring people back to life, or heal them o yes, makes you wonder if Goku could bring Roshi back to life with a Kame Hame Ha to the chest (yes like those things they use when you have a heart attack, they use KHH like this in the movie) instead of asking Shen Long to bring him back to life.

This is the best Kame Hame Ha, is an AIRBENDING technique¡¡¡, no this is not figurative speak, they acctually use that word, Airbending, yes james Wong got dragonball and avatar mixed up, you can see all the research he did.

This is like having someone say in the wolverine movie, "yes wolverine you have a healing factor because you are kryptonian" is the same size of stupidity.

Now lets look at our actors and what they may have been thinking.

Justin Gaywick: he tries hard to create a likeable character, he fails compleatly, i mean you would like him if he was working in Office Depot, you would say that dude in Office Depot is nice, but you would never ever think of him as Goku, when he appears in full blown Goku costume, you don´t think there is Goku, you think, there is that guy who works at Office Depot dressed in a cheap Goku costume.

Nuff Said.

What was he more likely thinking?: Well i hope after this movie I can get work at Office Depot

Emily Rossum (aka Rascacolas): Dude she is ugly, she is not hot at all, she is just speaking his lines very very fast trying to get this over quickly, while probably pondering a future carreer striping.

Spike: He has nothing to do, i cant say he did a bad job, he is barely in the movie at all, he is probably thinking he finally knows what those buffy villians with all that prostetics felt like, and tried to chanel them unfortuantely the script was NOT written by Joss Wheddon.

What was he probably thinking: Why didn´t they film all my scenes in one day, so I could go home?

Jamie Cheung as Look at my Chi Chi: Ok have to get it out in the open, I would DO her, oh I would do her so bad, of the 3 girls in this movie she is the only doable one, and she is a complete slut, full blown, even helping in Goku´s training trough the force of slutiness, oh yes she is a terrible actress, who barely process the english lenguaje.... but i will still do her.

She was probably thinking this was a porn movie and that they would be filming the sex scenes later on.

Chow Yun Fat: He is Chow Yun Fat, I have a soft spot for hi, he looks cool, I have to say it, and if it wasn´t because his english is terrible he would have stolen the movie in his sleep, but why did he play Roshi as a madman?, that is beyond me.

What was he more likely thinking, oh well he wasn´t he probably just had a big fat joint everyday, and was just having fun.

Eriko Tamura: She is a non entity in the film, might as well not be there, she looks angry the whole movie, probably beacuse she was thinking that she has betrayed her nation, and that as soon as she sets foot in Japan she will have to commit sepuku.(ritual suicide)

The K-pop star who plays Yamcha: Cheese and Rice it burn my nads, either this guy has some of Chow Yun Fat´s pot, or had harder drugs, or it´s just an idiot, but no one who say those lines can't have any self respect, by the way I know Yamcha was the weakest character but this is too much, I mean Bulma and Chi Chi are stronger than him in the movie, that is just lame.

And I have to tell you about the Tenkaichi Budokai scene, the Martial Arts turnaments is the worst scene in a terrible movie, it looks like Ultimate Fighters done by Nickelodeon, I kid you not, is just awful.

At the final battle It looks like Goku is gonna go trough Piccolo like he did in the original, I tought wow this is gonna be cool, of course he doesn´t, just beat him up with a crappy Kame Hame Ha, the great useless demon.

Oh and big spoiled if you stay after the credits, you see piccolo being taken care off, by a mexican woman and he looks at her like, wow did I sleep with this chick?, yes we all know in Dragonball thats how Piccolo becomes good he is nursed to health (of a big hole in the middle of his body of all things) by a nice mexican woman who teach him the value of love or something stupid like that.

All in all this movie would be enjoyable if you where not older than 6 and didn´t know anything about anything, or if you where stoned out of your mind, but if and only if, you never heard of Dragonball before in your life, any time where i told myself, ok this is just some silly movie, enjoy the stupidity, they called someone Goku or Bulma or Roshi and it ruined it for me, made me throw up a bit in my mouth.

Imagine is like one of those lame parodies going around, like Scary Movie, or Date Movie or Disaster Movie, this could have been Kung Fu Movie and Goku could have been Pauly Shore, really and the result would have been pretty much the same.

To close things up a disclaimer that the movie should have.

The characters and situations portrayed in this film, are lame, any resemblance and similitude between those and any manga or anime character living or dead, is purely concidential.