The Movies:
One of the most popular anime series in the world is Akira Toriyama's
Dragon Ball (and the follow-up Dragon Ball Z.) Unless
you've been living under a rock for the last couple of decades or so you've
probably encountered the story of Son-Goku and his friends and they search
for mystical Dragon Balls, fight evil, and have all sorts of galaxy-spanning
adventures. FUNimation has now released three of the Dragon Ball
movies (out of the four that were made) in uncut form in a nice boxed set.
These movies are a lot of fun, especially for fans of the show. While
they basically retell (with some significant differences) earlier stories
from the Dragon Ball series, they are filled with such humor and excitement
that it's hard not to like them.
Dragon Ball is the story of a young boy named Son-Goku. He's a
fun-loving kid, who just happens to have a tail. Oh yeah, and he's
got super-human strength and unbelievable fighting ability. The show
is very light hearted in tone, with Goku meeting every villain's threat
to kill him with a smile. There is a lot of fighting, but Goku manages
to treat it all as a joke.
There's also seven Dragon Balls. If anyone manages to collect
all seven, they can summon the Eternal Dragon who will grant them one wish.
The first Dragon Ball Movie, Curse of the Blood Rubies, is not
included in this set. That's a shame, because the only version of
this film, to my knowledge, available in region one is an edited versions
that is included with the first Dragon Ball DVD set; The Saga of Goku.
It would have been nice to have all the movies together in one collection,
and to finally see Rubies in its original form.
Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle:
The second Dragon Ball movie has retells the story of Krillin and Goku
becoming students of the Turtle Hermit, Master Roshi. When both boys
arrive at Roshi's Island to train with the master, Roshi decides to give
them a series of tests, and whoever comes out ahead will be his student.
He assigns the lads the task of going to the Devil's Hand and rescuing
a beautiful princess (and bringing her back to his island, of course.)
The task isn't as easy as it sounds since the Princess is guarded by a
vampire-demon named Lucifer and his army of ogres.
A fun film that retells an early story, it seems rushed at only 55 minutes.
Still, the beginning has a lot of humor and the end has a lot of action.
What more could you want?
Mystical Adventure: Dragon
Ball Movie #3. This adventure has Goku and Krillian once again training
under Master Roshi, but when they've completed their tasks, he enters them
in the World Martial Arts Tournament. In a change from the original
show this time the Tournament is run by Emperor Chiaotzu. In any
case, the Emperor's Vizier, Master Shen, has been collecting Dragon Balls.
He's been telling the Emperor it is to gain the return of his kidnapped
wife, but in reality he's doing it so he can use them to overthrow Chiaotzu
and reign in his place.
This movie also retells the story of Bora and Korin's Tower where Goku
ends up getting some really quick training. This condensation was
okay, but I preferred the original, longer version as told in the TV series.
Like the previous film, this is short, only 48 minutes, and cramming the
World Martial Arts Tournament in with all the other plot points makes the
movie seem rushed. They are so crammed for time that the resolution
has to be shown while the credits roll.
The Path to Power: This final
Dragon Ball movie is my favorite. This one starts at the very beginning,
with Goku living alone with just the Dragon Ball that his grandfather left
him. He meets Bulma, a girl looking to collect the Dragon Balls so
that she can wish for the perfect boyfriend. Not wanting to give
up the ball his grandfather gave him, Goku joins her on the search.
Along the way they meet the usual supporting characters, Roshi, Oolong,
Yamcha, and more. Before they can collect all of the balls however,
the Red Ribbon Army attacks.
This was a fun adventure, and it's always great to see the origin story
once more (even if it is changed slightly.) Goku is an infectious
character and his escapades are a lot of fun. The highlight of this
movie is when the Red Ribbon Navy attacks and Master Roshi shows his stuff.
The old hermit is more powerful than one would have imagined. Running
a bit longer than the other movies, this one plays out the best, though
it still feels a bit cramped and rushed.
The DVD:
These three movies come on three single-sided DVDs which are housed
in slimpack cases. The three cases fit nicely into a decorative slipcase.
Audio:
All three movies offer the choice between the original Japanese soundtrack
in stereo or an English dub, also in stereo. The first film in this
collection also offers a 5.1 English mix. I viewed these with the
Japanese tracks and found them to be fine. There wasn't a lot of
use made by the soundstage, and the action sequences could have been punched
up a bit, but for films from the 80's they sounded fine. I'd advise
against choosing the dub track since that also cues certain edits in the
movies. For example, in Mystical Adventure the credits roll
over the ending scenes. Since these are in Japanese, in the dubbed
version half the screen is blacked out with the credits (in English) running
on the blacked out sections. This looks really stupid and thankfully
it doesn't happen if Japanese is selected for the language.
Video:
The full frame images were fine. The pictures were a bit soft
in places and the aliasing was evident in more than a few spots but it
was never distracting. There were also some spots evident on all
three films, but these weren't excessive. Aside from those defects
the films looked great. The lines were tight and the colors deep
and vibrant. While not the greatest looking set of films, these are
worth adding to your anime collection.
Extras:
Unfortunately none of these DVDs came with any features aside from a
set of character profiles on The Path to Power.
Final Thoughts:
This is a great set. The movies are fun and light and it's a very
enjoyable way to spend an evening. Since these movies mainly retell
episodes in Goku's early life with some changes luke-warm fans won't need
to see this. Any other Dragon Ball fan who wants to spend an enjoyable
three hours should pick this up though. Recommended.
Buy: