Dragon Ball Z Movie 15: Fukkatsu no "F"

Earth is finally peaceful again, but this calm is short-lived. The remnants of Frieza's army, led by Sorbet and his right hand Tagoma, arrive on Earth in order to summon Shen Long with the goal of resurrecting their old master. To do so, they threaten Emperor Pilaf, Shuu, and Mai for the Dragon Balls in their possession.

Once successfully revived, Frieza—who had been stoking his hatred for Gokuu Son and Future Trunks in Hell—proclaims that he will not be content until they are dead by his hand. Sorbet informs him that Future Trunks has not been heard of in years, and Gokuu's power has far surpassed even that of the mighty Majin Buu. Unfazed, Frieza responds that he only requires a few months of training before being capable of defeating Gokuu.

Will Frieza be able to exact revenge upon his nemesis, or will Gokuu, Vegeta, and their friends prevail against adversity, saving Earth once more?

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Son, Gokuu Main

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Vegeta Main

Horikawa, Ryo Japanese

Freeza Main

Nakao, Ryusei Japanese

Son, Gohan Supporting

Nozawa, Masako Japanese

Piccolo Supporting

Furukawa, Toshio Japanese

Future Trunks Supporting

Kusao, Takeshi Japanese

Bulma Supporting

Tsuru, Hiromi Japanese

Muten-Roushi Supporting

Satou, Masaharu Japanese

Kuririn Supporting

Tanaka, Mayumi Japanese

Beerus Supporting

Yamadera, Kouichi Japanese

Sabat, Christopher Producer, ADR Director

Bezerra, Wendel Producer, ADR Director

Cook, Justin Producer

Yamamuro, Tadayoshi Director, Storyboard, Character Design, Chief Animation Director, Animation Director, Key Animation

Reviews

May 7, 2015

1nfiniteXcaliber

Recommended

Dragon ball Z movie 15 Fukkatsu no F or Resurrection of Frieza
seems to go canon with movie 14 Battle of Gods.

Some time has passed since the events of The God of destruction Beerus alongside Whis were introduced as brand new characters from the previous movie that takes place after the Majin Buu Arc within the Dragon ball Z series, Along with the revamped Dragon ball Kai 2014 finishing off as well as an announcement of a new Series dawning upon us right after that,
There have certainly been a lot of new content going on in and out of the franchise lately.

Story/Plot - 5
So I'll ... do my best not to spoil anyone here at this point who have not seen this but as you can tell the title tells you most of the premise in a basic nutshell.

Remnants of frieza's empire are monitoring earth for the dragon balls with some special assistance as they finally succeed in reviving frieza.

Frieza fueling with even greater animosity for the saiyans than before decides to for the very first time in his life train himself to ascend into a more powerful state than ever before without even worrying about how far above others are in terms of power compare to his own so that he can exact his vengeance on Goku and others.

From other previous dragon ball films It sounds like a familiar theme that has existed many times with that sort of premise don't you think?
you would be right, A typical formula with a very familiar structure, but does it make the film entertaining and worth seeing? short answer yes.

Now I can see why some Dragonball fans might not be as enthralled about frieza being the main villain of this movie and expected a different villain or possibly a new story/scenario at this point in time after Battle Of Gods is totally understandable.

But to me if you look at it in this way, A revenge movie for frieza prior to him having a major impact in the series itself does make sense since he has ties to major characters within the story such as Vegeta, Beerus, Gohan, Goku, Piccolo and others along with major events that took place in the dragonball Z itself which after all, were some of the most well done moments in the show.

Once again now, that previous threat from the series has returned in full circle which is cool in terms of the villain's reputation since frieza I feel is the best antagonist in the entire show hands down and one of the most iconic villains in the anime world in general.

Love him or hate him you can't deny from the series how much of a crazy, menacing son of a gun he can be. Plus none of that ''This planet is going to explode in 5 minutes'' nonsense either in this.

A couple of things that did bother me and questioned about were the training segments in the film on how the training segments was presented within the duration of time that the movie had and how frieza could even attain such power to be almost on par on goku's level of power prior to them facing each other from over the course of 10 years ago from now within this film and then within the space of 4 months frieza somehow surpasses some of the strongest characters including android 18, Cell, Majin Buu, Gohan etc, etc?? I'm sorry but to me that felt like pure BS.
I must also point out that other characters were left out from the film which also did threw me off when watching.

While watching how characters in the film are introduced into the story it sometimes did feel a little unnatural when its rushing through scenes into some brief interactions along with some reminders of the series while having this encompassing the film for the first third of it led this into being quite slow in place to start off just to get towards the big moments in the movie which a lot of people just mostly want to see.

Maybe its because I'm watching the Japanese theatrical version of this since I did watched the movie premiere in theatres which makes me also interested as to how the extended version of this movie will flush out more stuff than this version.

I do feel its structure with the characters though to be quite questionable and it might also hinder some viewers who do want a better understanding and possibly something of a better build up to its source material into this from the previous film. basically what I mean is how the film starts out and for the most part the story plays a lot of stuff more safer like the other films in this franchise but as a fan it didn't bother me that much.

Art/Animation - 9.5
There is no doubt for me as a fan, that this animation is some of the most impressive that I've seen out all of the dragon ball movies in general and no I'm not kidding. It steps up way more than even the likes of battle of gods in terms of art and animation as its shown at better angles with more of an enhanced flow in the action department which looks excellent from an animation standpoint. though I will admit the cgi is pretty noticeable and does seem a little stiff in this however this didn't detract from how excellent the animation looks. No doubt Best looking Dragonball film to date.

Also Loved the action segments in this, They were awesome in this film!!

Sound/Voice - 8
The soundtracks are pretty good especially Freeza by Maximum The Hormone it really Kicks Ass!! No surprise if you've heard their other hardcore soundtracks from their albums or even in other animes such as Death Note which to me their theme of friezadoes fits frieza's demeanour In general for this movie.

Momoiro Clover Z ending theme personally didn't suit this movie ending what so ever. If only they could just stick to sailor moon's music and stay far, far away from dragon ball related stuff.

Apart from them, the music and the voice acting was really superb.
The Dub performance is as perfect as it will be. My only nitpick with the dub if I'm being honest was mainly just Frieza mentioning in excitement of how he could reach a power level over 1.3 million which to me did not make a lot of sense But overall Its a fantastic dub as to be expected.

Character - 6.5
Now of course this movie doesn't just showcase Frieza's malicious and usual arrogance as the villain that he is at times but it also displays the progression of Goku and Vegeta actually training for the first time alongside one another which was quite a surprise to me and Its great since there rivalry is so damn popular.

The characters in this have great interactions among the cast with great standout scenes with Bulma, Krillin, Master Roshi, Gohan and Piccolo being shown to what they are have been up to since the last movie and from that also includes newly added character Jaco from akira Toriyama's Manga Jaco The Galactic patrolman in the film never seen before in the show, Its Like a calm before the storm until frieza and his entire army appear to get ready for an all out war with the earth at stake, No surprise yet again.

I kinda wish certain characters who were absent in this movie were in this just like battle of gods which had a full house cast of the characters from the show, To me they would of played a much more deserve role for this to give more creative routes and moments towards this movie.

I would like to elaborate much more on the characters but again It will go into spoiler territory from here on in so again I'll allow you to find that out for yourself since it is that typical shonen formula of Good Vs Evil.

A negative though that I must mention is the ending which felt quite brief in closing with the characters which could of been done better in my opinion especially on Vegeta's behalf.

Enjoyment - 8
It certainly was entertaining and for fans who enjoy the franchise in general no matter how long its been, In my opinion I certainly feel it was a fun movie and I will say its worth a watch to check out that Dbz nostalgia here and there.

Its better also since the action scenes kicked a lot of ass with the Z-fighters. Also seeing the premiere of this made watching this even more memorable. Still I can't believe this franchise has been around for over 30 years now and honestly this made me remember some parts of the series again while watching this movie in a fond positive type of way, which is something quite special.

Overall - 7
I had my doubts about this movie beforehand and I knew I just wanted to see this for the fun of it and I'm so glad I did because it really was.

I enjoyed it very much as a fan. of course your going to get some people bashing this movie from their own critical standpoint but I know all too well its like this on MAL with a lot of popular animes so its no surprise, so with all that being said my overall score for this movie is 7/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Aug 4, 2015

literaturenerd

Mixed Feelings

Overview:

We Dragonball fans often tend to be a very emotional bunch that give heated reviews. However, I'm not here to say this movie SUCKED or this movie ROCKED! If you want my honest opinion...this movie was ok. It had some serious flaws, but it had some things it really did well. In the following paragraphs I will explain exactly what I mean.

My thoughts on the United States Theater release:

If you don't live in the US or simply don't care about this section, please skip ahead to the plot section.

After months of waiting, DBZ movie 15: Resurrection "F" has FINALLY been released in US theaters. Of ... course this means it is being released in a very limited number of theaters for 1 week only! This is despite the fact that this movie was the largest box office hit of 2015 thus far in Japan and the US actually has millions of non-anime fans in their 20s and 30s that still grew up with DBZ and might want to see this movie. Why the tiny theatrical release? Are US theaters all owned by people who hate DBZ and don't want this movie to make much money? Obviously that would a very, very silly conspiracy, but not QUITE as groundless and crazy as you might initially think. The 2nd largest movie theater chain in the United States is called AMC theaters, which is owned by Chinese billionaire Jianlin Wang. Mr. Wang is a very patriotic ex-Red Army veteran that is also a high ranking official of the Chinese Communist Party and happens to NOT like Japan very much. Japanese produced films like those released by Sony Pictures have seen their profits plunge in the US since 2012 when the Dalian He-Xing Corporation controlled by the Chinese government bought out AMC and several other US theaters to increase China's "soft power" overseas. Japanese financed films in the US are now shown on fewer screens and for shorter times, at least in part thanks to the efforts of the Chinese government. At this point I should be grateful that the CCP allowed this movie to be released in the US at all. Thank you Honorable Chairman Xi Jinping!

Plot:

Warning! This contains Spoilers!!!

The plot is honestly the largest problem with this movie. You can tell that Toriyama himself wrote it because it contains the kind of plot holes and continuity errors that only the master of "not giving a fuck about his own work" is capable of. If this movie was written by someone who had never seen DBZ before and prepared by spending 5 hours reading wikipedia and fan wikia summaries it would have contained far fewer errors!

Due to the high level of bullshit moments, I will give an overview of the plot and count the number "Cinema Sins" style with a number enclosed in parenthesis (1)

The adventure begins with Freeza's henchmen going to Earth to gather the dragon balls. These henchmen were stated to have roughly equal power to the Ginyu force and like all of Freeza's henchmen did not have the ability to repress their power levels. However, unlike previous examples of abnormally strong power levels approaching the planet, none of the Z fighters noticed the presence of these minions and thus never tried to stop them (1).

The henchmen wish for Freeza to come back to life, but the Dragon states that since he died when Buu destroyed the Earth, he now has new rules and can only bring back a body in the shape it was in at the time of death. Freeza got sliced and diced by Trunks and therefore his body could only be brought back in the tiny pieces that Trunks cut him into. The Earth's "eternal" dragon Shenlong has been killed twice before the time Buu destroyed Earth and there were no changes to his rules following the first 2 times Shenlong was restored (2).

The minions simply take the small pieces of Freeza's corpse and place them in the healing tank, which perfectly restores Freeza's body. This is despite the fact that the healing tank used by Freeza's men in previous sagas could NOT restore the dead or heal such serious wounds as being in tiny pieces. That is precisely why Freeza's body had to be rebuilt as a cyborg following the explosion of Namek and his body was in MUCH better condition after Namek than after Trunks (3).

Freeza died in his "final form" which is actually his original form and the other forms were created to preserve energy. Yet, when the healing machine pieces him back together while he is unconscious, he is somehow in his most repressed transformation (4).

Freeza is informed that Goku has gotten much stronger and defeated Majin Buu, which shocks Freeza since we apparently now learn that Freeza's father once warned him of Majin Buu and Beerus the God of Destruction. Although I like that Toriyama has tried hard to retcon Beerus into the DBZ world, it makes ZERO sense for Freeza's father to have heard of Majin Buu! This is because at any time in Freeza's life when his father could have told him this information, Buu was sealed away and hadn't been seen by anyone for millions of years. There would be no reason to believe that Buu was still alive and even North Kai hadn't heard of Buu because it happened way before the lifetime of a low level Kai like him. The only characters with the knowledge of the entire history of the universe to know about Majin Buu were the Supreme Kai, other high level immortal Gods like Beerus, and the several million year old wizard Babidi. Apparently King Cold is a WAY better historian than any other mortal character and can predict that someone thought dead for millions of years is actually still somehow alive (5).

Freeza announces that despite having a power level several thousand times lower than Majin Buu and well over 10,000 times lower than SSJ God Goku, that with six months of training he could fight on the same level as Goku. We learn that Freeza "has never trained a minute is his life" and that the only reason he isn't the strongest character in the Dragonball Universe is that he is the laziest character in the history of fiction. Freeza was certainly arrogant in DBZ, but he was also a highly ambitious tyrant that was totally bent on domination. Why would it make sense that he has never once worked out in his life and is even lazier than Oblomov (cookie if you got that last joke). This not only completely derails Freeza's character, but we never even get to see a second of apparently the greatest power boost training in Dragonball history! (6).

We see the lovably flamboyant Whis training Goku and Vegeta and learn that both of them can now achieve a 2nd level of Super Saiyan God! Seriously?! Vegeta took forever to go SSJ 1 and never even came close to learning SSJ 3. How in the fuck did Vegeta in a couple months attain SSJ God lvl 2?! Whis is obviously one HELL of a teacher. Maybe he is the one who secretly trained Freeza in order to provide a challenge for Goku!!! Nah, that would make too much logical sense. The real answer is that Toriyama doesn't give a fuck! (7).

Freeza invades Earth and an epic battle begins between Freeza's soldiers and the Z fighters. This includes Master Roshi who beats the shit out of dozens of Freeza's soldiers...despite the fact that Raditz was below the average strength of a Freeza soldier and Raditz was 10 times stronger than Roshi in his prime (8).

Krillen tells C-18 to protect their daughter while he fights against Freeza's men. Krillen doesn't want either of them to be in danger, despite the fact that C-18 is over 1000 times stronger than him and FAR less likely to die in battle. Why in fuck would C-18 allow her infinitely weaker spouse to go get himself killed?! She has never been shown to be a coward like Yamcha and we are led to believe that she truly does love Krillen and cares deeply about him. Why wouldn't she just knock Krillen out and go in his place?! Hooray for completely illogical character assassination! (9).

Goku and Vegeta finally arrive to fight against Freeza and the action begins with the now blue haired Goku against Golden Freeza. Goku seems to gain the upper hand, but one of Freeza's minions with a tiny power level is able to severely injure Goku with a tiny laser because Goku's guard was down. This is despite the fact that Goku has been hit off-guard by dozens of FAR stronger attacks and it has been explained that Goku's tremendous Ki protects his body like a force field. The only exception was a non-canon filler episode where Krillen throws a rock at him for the sake of comic relief. (10).

Vegeta takes over the fight and kicks Freeza's ass. Vegeta is arrogant and always looking for a challenge, so he will allow a fight to drag on if his opponent promises another transformation or hasn't reached their max power. However, Vegeta has always quickly finished his fights against weaker, unworthy opponents like Freeza in his current state. That is why it makes VERY little sense for Vegeta to give Freeza the time to repeat what he did on Namek and tried to do again against Trunks by blowing the planet and winning via default. Vegeta would have KNOWN that Freeza would try this because Freeza ALWAYS tries this strategy when he starts losing. However, Toriyama wanted to fuck over Vegeta and Freeza wins by blowing up the planet. Whis then pulls some deus ex machina bullshit and sends Goku back in time to just before the planet is destroyed so that Goku can kill Freeza. Why the hell do you hate Vegeta so much Toriyama?! If you didn't like him, you should have killed him off and not made him a main character! (11).

Obviously I didn't catch all the countless mistakes, but these were just a few that particularly bothered me either because they derailed a beloved character or completely raped the continuity of the timeline.


Art and Animation:

The art and animation is actually pretty damn good. The use of CGI was slightly less annoying than in Battle of Gods, and the action was excellent. The well animated fights and big budget blockbuster feel made this movie enjoyable for DBZ fans despite the multitude of plot issues.

Music:

The music was honestly pretty good and I liked the inclusion of "F" by Maximum the Hormone. It was a nice touch!


Overall:

Is this movie the greatest thing Toriyama has ever produced? Obviously not. However, it was a well animated action fest with some enjoyable fights and a few funny moments. There have been WAY worse DBZ movies that we the fans have had to put up with over the years. If I wasn't a big fan of DBZ I think I would give this a 5 or arguably even a 4, but because I personally enjoyed it a lot, I feel that I have to give up a tad of analytical objectivity and give it a 6. Your mileage may vary.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jan 17, 2017

karlstein12

Not Recommended

SPOILERS AHOY!

Terrible. That's one way to describe Dragon Ball Z: Fukkatsu no 'F'.

Toriyama-sensei took us all by storm when the second most recent movie, 'Dragon Ball Z: Kami to Kami' or 'Battle of Gods' was released. It introduced us to a whole new perspective to the world of Dragon Ball Z, with the addition of a major antagonist, 'The God of Destruction' as he's known, Lord Beerus. Not to mention an all new transformation for our hero Goku known as the 'Super Saiyan God'. As lame as the name sounds, the appearance and the way it came to existence was somewhat similar too. But ... the fact that it was an altogether different entity as it had transcended to the position of a deity made it somewhat believable and cool, and it was also helped by Beerus, a deity himself with interesting characteristics. But this is where it all fails for Fukkatsu no 'F', as there is no originality whatsoever and the main antagonist is Frieza. For god's sake, Frieza. Why did anyone think it'd be a good idea to bring back a popular villain, whose time has long gone from the series, give him an upgraded look and it'd be good to go?

The resurrection of Frieza itself is a reason as to why the movie sucked, but it had a lot of other inconsistencies as well. First of all, there is no proper world building as the movie starts with a strange scene where little fairies are seen dancing and Frieza's mecha face is seen hanging inside that of a cocoon. The next thing we know is that Frieza's sub-ordinate, Sorbet is plotting to revive Frieza back using the Dragon Balls and is coming in search for it on Earth. He doesn't have to wait long as he just steals them from Pilaf and his gang who apparently have found all seven of the Dragon Balls. Strange enough because the last time I saw them they were at their wits' end rowing a broken boat not knowing where to go, so it makes no sense that they could find all the Dragon Balls scattered around the Earth in such a short period. It doesn't end there, after having all seven Dragon Balls the first thing you'd do is just wake the dragon up and ask for your wish, but no because at the very next moment Pilaf and his gang are visited by Sorbet who comes all the way from outer space to Earth in a moment. Pretty good timing, huh?

Soon enough we have Frieza coming back to life and heading out to face the Z warriors in an instant with all of his army. The motive is lackluster, with Frieza learning how much Goku and others have become stronger, Frieza too heads out to train supposedly for the first time in his life. It all feels too old and bland to believe as the only reasoning given as to why Frieza could be a formidable opponent is that he could awaken his latent power by training. Now there is a hint for this in the previous movie when we see Beerus acting a little surprised when he comes to know of Frieza's defeat by a Saiyan, but it feels funny considering how powerless he's shown in the later arcs of Dragon Ball Z. And all of this works against it when Frieza comes back wanting a fight with the Z warriors. Going by the logic of Dragon Ball Z, it would only seem plausible for Gohan or even for Piccolo to defeat Frieza considering how stronger they have become. But nope, its shown as if Earth is once again facing a huge crisis and we even have Gohan saying that he doubts if he can even become a Super Saiyan, thus totally working against what Dragon Ball Z had established. Things take a turn for the worse when he's taking out in an instant by one hit from Frieza and is on the verge of death. (RIP Gohan, what have you done to his character, Toriyama-san!)

The buildup is complete for a showdown between Goku and Vegeta who return after training with Whis back to Earth to face Frieza. In a nutshell, the ensuing battle is enjoyable for those who don't care for whats happening and just want to get their ticket's worth, but as for me its meaningless. There are two new transformations to be seen in the movie, with Goku and Vegeta each showing their new Super Saiyan God's Super Saiyan form. (The hair turns all blue basically) and an absurd power increase given to Frieza with his equally absurd Golden Frieza form. There also is no explanation or a buildup as to how Goku and Vegeta have achieved the new form, but I presume that would be later explained in the TV series, Super. (In which I have yet to reach that point on). But as for in the movie, its a negative. It all could've ended well at least with them letting Vegeta call it a day by taking his revenge on Frieza, but that too didn't happen and Goku once again hogged all the glory. In the end it all seemed like it was a test for Goku from Whis who turns back time to give him one more chance to end Frieza for good, which also made the very reason why Frieza was resurrected and his fight against Goku completely pointless.

There are a lot of good movies in the Dragon Ball Z franchise but none of them till the thirteenth installment were canon. Fukkatsu no 'F' was definitely not one of those good movies and unfortunately it indeed is canon. Dragon Ball Z may have truly hit rock bottom with this one.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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