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).

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.

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.

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.