Audience reviews
12 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
thech8t
This movie is a totally solid one-off. If you wanna introduce someone to Dragon Ball, I think this is a fine way to do it. The animation is beautiful, I do like King Gurumes as a villain, and the action sequences from the martial arts to the dogfights go HARD.
But I understand that this is no one's definitive Dragon Ball. It just retells the origin story with a different bad guy that no one outside of fans of *this* particular movie would give a damn about, integrates him and his henchmen *into* the origin story beats, and it has zero bearing on any other Dragon Ball material except the other two theatrical movies which are in continuity with this one.
I like it a lot myself, but I'm not sure I would recommend it beyond "one-off fun little movie". If you're a continuity nut, this is not…
Read at the sourceSirBunting
Watching this after episodes 1-13, there are clear differences that set it apart from the original story. I think it's somewhat interesting to do an alternative story like that, and the movie doesn't overstay its welcome with a relatively short runtime. But unfortunately the overall quality is mediocre, and the movie has pacing issues and important details that get glossed over.
The positives include the iconic Toriyama style and painterly backgrounds. Even after growing up with the style, I still find it delightful. The set pieces are a joy to look at. I also think Pasta is more attractive than Mai, if less funny. Yeah I said it! The alternative story beats are kind of trippy, like how Yamcha's house is in the wolf area instead of a desert. That actually makes a lot of sense. And I guess…
Read at the source_Bubassotto_
Just plain bland 🤷🏾
This movie is a retelling of the beginning of classic Dragon Ball, and since it's a retelling, it's obviously not canon. Therefore, I believe the film works well on its own. Even so, despite this creative freedom, I still find it all a bit bland. I was never a big fan of the classic phase precisely because I didn't see anything truly interesting or engaging in it; for me, it was always just another necessary step to get to Dragon Ball Z. So, even changing the initial story of the official anime, the movie failed to excite me. The fights, the characters, the pacing… everything seemed lacking that "something extra."
I don't know if I dozed off during the movie or if it really failed to connect some points, but there were moments when it seemed like a piece of the stor…
Read at the sourceVanVeleca
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…
Read at the sourcezrh1501
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.
Read at the sourcegaribaldo33
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…
Read at the sourceDanMcMahon
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…
Read at the sourceGhostofSide6
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…
Read at the sourcektulu007
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 th…
Read at the sourceMemeAlchemist
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…
Read at the sourceKlownArt
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.
Read at the sourcekekekeKaj
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…
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