Dragonball Live Action Movie

Until recently the only live action Dragonball movie was a 1989 Cantonese film adaptation of the Dragonball series.  It was released in China and was not well received, being called “tacky” by critics and very loosely following the Dragonball anime storyline. 

            Now there is a Dragonball live action movie in production that is scheduled for release in April 8, 2009.  It has been in production since 2002 (it’s about time they got around to it – 7 years!!) and 20^th Century Fox owns the rights to the movie.  It tells the story of Goku, played by Justin Chatwin, as he searches for the Dragonballs and tries to keep them away from Lord Piccolo, played by James Marsters.  The Dragonballs are magical orbs that can grant whatever wish the summoner desires, as long as it is within the power of the dragon inside and Lord Piccolo will stop at nothing to get them.  Goku is joined on his quest by Chi-Chi (Jamie Chung), Bulma (Emmy Rossum), Yamcha (Joon Park), and his teacher, Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat).

            Dragonball is written and directed by James Wong and the stunt performance company 87Eleven, which worked on the Matrix and 300, is working on the movie.  Amalgamated Dynamics is responsible for the special effects and the companies Ollin Studios, Zoic Studios, and Imagine Engine are responsible for the visual effects.  There were several different shooting locations including several Mexico locations and Los Angeles, California. 

Akira Toriyama created Dragonball as a manga, a Japanese comic book, in 1984 and lead to several video games and three animes.  It also had several animated movies, toy lines and a card battle game.

                                          Goku and Bluma