Dragon Ball Movie 1: Shen Long no Densetsu

Having seen this movie, I now understand why the Dragon Ball movie "The Path to Power" (which I watched before this one) is labelled as an "alternative version" to the beginning of Dragon Ball - it essentially does the same thing as this movie, but went about it in a different way. Both of them bring some of the core characters of the franchise: Goku, Bulma, the turtle guy and the pig etc (these guys don't even need names to be honest). The production seems to be higher for this movie, as the animation looks clearer, but this could be because I watched a lower ... quality version of the other movie. The cast isn't too bad overall, I've definitely seen a lot worse. On the positive side of the fence, Goku is a likeable character with all his innocence. On the negative side there's Bulma, who is quite annoying with her stereotypical "annoying highschool girl" voice and attitude.

My comments for "Curse of the Blood Rubies" is mostly the same as the ones for "The Path to Power". They share the same dodgy voice acting (along with the rest of the Dragon Ball franchise), and the same mediocre animation and character designs (again, along with the rest of the franchise). What's more, just like "The Path to Power", this movie is also a cut above the average Dragon Ball movie because it puts commendable effort into the story so is not completely centered around the fighting. The result is a vaguely interesting adventure story with battles that doesn't drag on and on and on. Compared to "The Path of Power", the story is actually not quite as good. However, overall, I rate this movie slightly higher because the other one gets dragged down by the inappropriate fan service, whilst this movie is more friendly to the targeted audience due to lack of fan service, so just about manage to keep its head above the 6/10 threshold (which is equivalent to like a 9 or 10 relative to other Dragon Ball movies).

Toriyama Akira's Dragonball franchise is one I've looked at before. I've also looked at two films associated with it: Fusion Reborn & Battle of Gods. This time, we're going to kick off film festival week with a look at one of the Dragonball era films, Legend of Shenron. It originally aired in late 1986. Yes, the same year that Dragonball itself started airing. So, let's see how it compares to the others we've looked at.

Story:

We open with soldiers destroying buildings and fields while terrorising the citizens in order to mine rich stones. Clearly, the most creative name for valuable stones ever. We then cut ... to a pair of the soldiers meeting with the king. He stays in the shadows, but still manages to look grotesque. He orders them to find the rest of the dragon balls. We then cut to the beginning of Dragonball. Yeah, the whole scene where Goku goes out to catch a fish and then bumps into Bulma, mistaking her vehicle for a monster. There is, however, a difference. In this one, his dragon ball is stolen by the king's stooges, forcing him to go with Bulma and give chase.

Therein lies the biggest issue with this film. About half the running time is devoted to reiterating different scenes from the series proper with only minor differences. Except that the series proper took its time with them and gave you time to acclimate to the major characters they had before introducing you to more whereas this film throws one encounter after another at you. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that the idea was to bring in new viewers to the anime. The problem is they don't give you enough about these characters to make them worth your time. If, on the other hand, this is for fans of the series then it shouldn't be repeating all this information. Sure, there are differences but it's also a lot of wasted time that could be better devoted to fleshing out the film's narrative. Which gets pretty rushed when you factor out the repetitive scenes. The humour in this is also pretty mediocre. You get some funny scenes, but you also get comedic moments that represent the worst of Dragonball's jokes. IE: Muten Roshi and Oolong are perverts and a urine joke.

Characters:

Honestly, the characters are recognisable. You aren't going to look at Goku, Roshi, Yamch, Bulma or Oolong and think that they're out of character. That being said, the film doesn't do a good job of conveying the charm that the cast had, overall, in the series proper. Most of these characters get a quick introduction and hen don't do all that much. There's almost no reason for Yamcha & Pu'ar to be in this at all. It's very much focused on Goku & Bulma. The main antagonists are pretty dull. They're basically equivalent, in terms of characterisation, to the villains who show up for one episode of the show and get beaten with ease.

Art:

The artwork is pretty much on par with the artwork in the series proper. The backgrounds can be sparse but the character designs are nicely done and distinctive. The action scenes are well done. Actually, the best action sequence in the film might be an aerial dogfight with actual planes. Which is odd for something Dragonball related. The climactic sequence, in contrast, is kind of weak.

Sound:

The vocal cast is just as strong as they were in the series proper. Tsuru Hiromi, Nozawa Masako and Furuya Toru all deliver fine performances. Koyama Mami is also in this, although she's playing the villainous pasta rather than Lunch. Suzuki Tomoko takes a break from voicing random young girls in supporting roles to voice Pansy, a young girl who needs help. The music is also the same type you get in the main series. It's pretty good.

Ho-yay:

There really isn't any.

Final Thoughts:

So, that's Legend of Shenron, the first film in the Dragonball franchise. It's not very good. It suffers a lot from its need to reintroduce characters, presumably for new audiences, at the expense of the film's narrative. If you're a big Dragonball fan, you might enjoy it regardless but, for myself, I give it a 4/10. It's weak, but not bad. Tomorrow I'll continue film festival week with a look at Futari wa PreCure: Max Heart film 1.

If you are like me you don't mind non-canonical movies. Especially within the Dragon Ball realm. You understand they cannot logically happen, but still enjoy them. This movie is a retelling of the first arc of Dragon Ball. It's not just a shortened down version of the television series. It takes tons of liberties with characters and progression points.

With non-canonical movies you can enjoy them because they are their own thing. This isn't it's own thing though. It's just a worse version of the television series. The story moves to fast and no one really develops. The villain barely gets enough air time. The finale ... is mediocre. The voice acting (dub) is not as good (although it's not entirely terrible).

I can't see any reason to watch this over the actual Dragon Ball series.

If you are a film buff, literary critic, or even a fan of Japanese history you will adore this time-capsule. This is classic DragonBall with the addition of a look at the political and economic concerns of the time this piece was created. Observing the various references to fear of Industrialisation we see the Japanese rural perspective on the changes going through their country post-WW2. To see it in anime form is both surreal and fascinating to an educated person. Don't misunderstand me, it is in no way like Princess Mononoke, but it serves to be a very entertaining way to reintroduce the characters of ... Dragonball.

Also, I highly encourage you to listen to this with headphones, the sound of this anime is surprisingly spot-on, even by DBZ standards.

Another praise I have for this piece is that because of its time restraint it doesn't drag on (no pun intended) like the main series does in many aspects. It gets right to the point and it makes it extremely enjoyable to experience.

The Dragon Ball anime has been the source of two different movies, which are two different retellings of Dragon Ball's beginning, the other being 1996's the Path To Power. Shen Long no Densetsu. or Curse of the Blood Rubies is the first one, and it is fast and furious. The movie is only 51 minutes, and the next two are shorter.

First, the characters are normal, unchanging rocks. Goku shows almost no emotions other than happiness and confusion. The other characters are pale and stiff.

The story is that there's an evil king that rules over a land searching for Blood Gems or whatever they are. Their ... military steals Goku's Dragon Ball, and from there, the story begins to converge from the official Dragon Ball timeline. According to the DB encyclopedia, it is an alternate timeline. The ending is nice, but the rest of the story is simply brushed over. The pacing is incredibly fast, and it was over before I expected it.

The art's great; Especially Kame-sennin's Kamehameha, which causes all the ships to blow up. A younger me would say, "Whoah!" and I would definitely agree.

If you are trying to watch every second of DB, then watch after finishing the anime, as it is interesting to see another version of the story. However, I wouldn't recommend this for anyone else.

The animation while more fluid than the TV anime isn't anything to write home about, none of the movie original characters really matter nor do they do much except for the start and the end. It is the first movie of the franchise so I suppose the overall sort of "clumsy" feeling that it gives you makes sense, as it is very clearly not a movie meant to be watched in the current year or ever again.

The story is a loose "what if?" recap of the very first arc. Instead of the Pilaf gang we are introduced to this weird demon guy and his very ... boring goons, which are more competent that Shu and Mai, this is a negative.

The Pilaf gang was never meant to be seen as actual obstacles and instead existed for what the series was at the start, gags. Their failures and overall pathetic nature was funny and charming, if you take away their fuck ups the goons just become boring tough guys with equally boring scenes. It doesn't help that we don't learn anything about these characters, making it difficult to get invested in the antagonists of the film. It tries to make up for it by giving the audience more action, but just like the animation it looks nice but isn't all that impressive or different from what you would see in the TV anime.

Same goes for the new movie original character who was (sorta) part of the main crew, none of the scenes with her were funny and instead she just existed to drive the plot along, something which Bulma does in the original series but in a more entertaining way. I couldn't even remember her name because she was so forgettable and I can't be bothered to google it right now.

Goku has little to no focus. We get good moments with Bulma and Yamcha, but Goku gets little to no time to shine. The same goes for Puar, Roshi and Oolong, but at the time of the story they were minor characters anyhow.

Goku is the MAIN character, why the fuck does Yamcha get better scenes and more focus in the first movie than the actual main lead? No hate to Yamcha fans, but this decision just does not make sense to me. With Bulma it's fine as she's the main heroine and the second lead, but even in the OG series Yamcha's role becomes incredibly minor. Having him get a bigger role than Goku just...baffles me.

Finally my biggest issue with this movie, the pacing. Everything feels way too fast as they rush from story beat to story beat with little to no time to relax and they redo scenes from the original but in a way more loose and less impactful way. It makes sense as this movie isn't even an hour long so they have to rush it but oh my goodness SLOW DOWN.

Yeah it's just not very good.

Dragon Ball: The Curse of the Blood Rubies, also known as The Legend of Shenlong, is a non-canonical retelling of the first arc in the Dragon Ball anime/manga, and that happens to be its main flaw.

Due to starting from the same point where the anime and manga began, the movie has to introduce the main cast. The problem is, while this process took approximately seven episodes in the source material, this movie is only an hour long.
The result is that the first half of this movie feels incredibly rushed; things happen at a lightning quick pace, and some events feel like they were put ... in solely to make people go "ooh, it's that moment from the show!", with little to no regards for the pacing of the movie itself.
Once the introductions are done and over with, however, the movie becomes much more enjoyable. With worries about the runtime out of the way, the writers can focus on just writing our lovable cast interacting with each other and the setting, and it really is a blast.

The animation in the movie is stellar. Aside from a few select scenes, everything is very fluid and alive, and matches the mood of the source material.
The soundtrack is nothing special if you've seen the anime; it's the same soundtrack ported over. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, considering the anime's soundtrack was very good!

Much like the soundtrack, the main cast is simply ported over from the source, which is still not a bad thing; they may not be complex, but they're a fun bunch, and they're really what makes the final act of this movie so enjoyable. Although, certain characters feel wholly unnecessary to the story, and could have been cut out entirely, which would have helped the pacing issues.
For what it's worth, the antagonists manage to have a lot more personality than you'd expect. They're still not all that memorable, especially Bongo, resident "big muscly guy", but Pasta and the main villain himself, Gurumes are decent enough.

If you're a fan of Dragonball and you have about an hour of free time, this movie is not a bad choice to watch. The first half may be terribly paced, and many scenes will feel like they're only there because the writers thought "well, we can't leave this scene out", but it's still very well animated, and the second half is just a fun romp with the characters you know and love. That said, you probably won't be raring to see this movie a second or third time anytime soon.

A pretty charming and inoffensive little adventure, but it movies a such a rapid pace and has so little time devoted to introducing and developing the characters that I imagine anyone without at least some prior Dragon Ball knowledge would be pretty lost, and because of that its probably only enjoyable as a companion piece to the TV show rather than a fully stand alone movie.

Also, while it is pretty entertaining it's hard to rate the movie too highly when it is essentially just a very highly condensed retelling of the first Dragon Ball arc, with a few minor changes and with Pilaf, Mai, and ... Shu replaced a different trio of villains.

Eu acho que esse filme possui uma história bem preguiçosa já que copia a história do mangá original do começo ao fim. Isso também pode ser interpretado como uma maneira de atrair o público para consumir a obra original, e acaba sendo um filme bem prático nesse quesito.

Fora o filme ter um roteiro copiado, o vilão final é bem decepcionante para um primeiro filme de Dragon Ball, todas as outras lutas são interessantes e talvez sejam tão boas por serem copiadas, porque, quase tudo de original nesse filme não é tão bom quanto os conceitos originais da obra já aplicados no filme.

As consequências ... são praticamente inexistentes para os vilões do filme, eu consigo até pensar que a trama principal possua uma mensagem bonita, mas sinto que é uma mensagem efetuada de maneira rasa por não ser mais aprofundada.

Dragon Ball é uma das coisas mais nostálgicas que eu conheço e reviver esses personagens é algo bem aconchegante de certa forma. A comédia é realmente boa e disso eu não tenho do que reclamar.