I’m an english teacher in Ulsan, South Korea, and I watched the movie with a bunch of buddies of mine last night, thurs the 12th. Just so you know, foreign movies in Korea are shown in their native language with Korean subtitles. This won’t be a review perse. More a pros and cons (spoiler free) of the movie from someone who watched and enjoyed DBZ and some of DBGT, but didn’t think it was the pinnacle of anime at all.
PROS:
- The way the movie looks. It has the soft pastel look for brighter scenes and slightly gritty look for darker scenes. Some parts feel like an animation put to live action.
- The action. I feel its much better than the matrix movies. It doesn’t look and feel as choreagraphed. It flows somewhat naturally, for characters that are essentially super human.
- Ki attacks. They look really good in the movie. Some who don’t like that firery wind look will probably disagree with me, but i feel it worked well.
- School scenes are minimal. The scenes at the school don’t even add up to 10 min from what I remember, but I wasn’t checking my watch to make sure. Likewise for the party scene. It’s really short at well.
- Chatwin and Chow Yun Fat have a lot of comedic moments. I really enjoyed those parts.
- They setup a sequel. Make sure to stay past the credits.
Middle of the road:
- The dialogue is what you expect from a movie based on DB. It’s cheesy. DB was never shakespeare, so people shouldn’t expect anything spectacular. It works in the anime, but I’m unsure it was pulled off well in the movie.
- The effects for the most part work, but there’s a lot of use of the slow motion and emphasizing blows. Though the Ki stuff looks decent, CG models and piccolos green skin didn’t fair well.
CONS:
- The movie is short. I almost have a feeling that stuff was intentionally cut out so they could release a director’s cut down the line. The movie moves at an insanely brisk pace, which was a bit of a detriment to the ending.
- Its a PG movie. Take that as you will.
- The acting in some parts. Its like Wong went with the first take on a line delivery to get the movie done.
- Shenlong doesn’t talk and he’s really small.
I went in thinking it wasn’t going to be a very good movie, which is what I do for most high profile movies since Spider-Man 3, and I walked out thinking, “It wasn’t bad”. Likewise for most of my friends except one. He went in hoping for the greatest thing since the second coming of Christ, and left the theatre pissed off. So I believe people who go in with an open mind will probably take away something good from the movie. Those who pour insane amount of praise on the movie before watching it, will probably be disappointed, and those that absolutely hate its creation will probably feel vindicated.
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