Dragonball movie

[editman]

Threads merged.

So this is finally happening ey? EDIT: it looks like the report is authentic, as martial art trainings with the cast is happening now in Mexico.

I find it particualrly interesting regarding the film being produced by Stephen Chow and with Chow Yun-Fat casted as Kame Sennin (Muten Roshi, 'Master Roshi' in the English dub, which is a bit of a joke considering 'Roshi' in Japanese means 'Master'.) I know off-the-record, Chow Yun-Fat has been avoiding to work with Stephen Chow on the same movie for years, at least in Hong Kong, after Stephen Chow became a box office megahit in the 90s. Mind you, they both did appear on a couple of TV drama series in Hong Kong around 1983 when Stephen was still to find his fame. So it's not like they don't know each other or haven't worked together before. (And on a sidenote, Chow Yun-Fat and Tony Leung both appeared together in several TV soapies and films in Hong Kong between 1982 and 1992, and now they seem to be avoiding to work on the same project. Go figure.)

Anyway back to the film itself, it will be really interesting to see how it turns out. Looks like they're only gonna use the 'Dragon Ball' part of the story (Comics #1-#16, essentially The King Piccolo saga in #12-#16) for the movie, perhaps planning to do 'Dragon Ball Z' as a sequel/sequels if this one goes well in the box office (so no Vegeta yet in this one). Not sure if and how they're gonna fit everything in though (obviously the film begins with Goku as a teenager so all the storyline that begins with his childhood, eg the Battle against the Red Ribbon army, are scrapped).

Hopefully, with a bigger Hollywood budget, the second live action adaption of Toriyama's manga will be more faithful than the below-average Taiwanese adapation made in 1989. (Then again, let's hope it won't turn out like The Golden Compass. So if I see Goku turns into Super Seiyan at the climax of this one, I'll really roll my eyes cos he's not supposed to do that until facing off with Freeza.)

I just hope the August 2008 release date on IMDB is preliminary. With less than 7 months for training, shooting, post-production, not to mention creating the CGI-SFXs (I like to see how they do Kamehameha for real!), I don't know how they're gonna pull it off on time. On top of that, there's X-Files 2 which opens in July. (Which makes 2 Fox films being released this summer with sketchy info at this stage. If I'm in the publicity department I would worry if there's enough time to put teasers/trailers out to let people know about them, considering how early they publicised Die Hard 4 and The Simpsons Movie last year.) As much as I look forward to it, Christmas 2008 is more a realisitc time-frame to me. Then again, I don't work in the film industry.