Ask John: What’s the Story on Live Action Dragonball?

Question:
I’ve heard and seen around about some live action Japanese Dragon Ball movie(s), though I’ve not invested the time or money into them. Do you know anything about them? I mean, are they even any good? Somehow the thought just doesn’t sit right with me.

Answer:
I’ve heard rumors of a live-action Japanese Dragonball Z movie, but I honestly don’t think any such thing exists. There is a live-action film called Dragonball: The Magic Begins that was created in Hong Kong. This film is now available in the US, dubbed on VHS and DVD. AnimeNation doesn’t carry this film because, honestly, it’s that bad. I’ve only seen the film in untranslated Chinese, so all I can tell you is that the film revolves around Goku, Yamcha, Oolong (a guy wearing pig make-up) and company trying to prevent machine gun wielding aliens from collecting the seven dragon balls. By the best standards of HK films, including films by John Woo & Ringo Lam, and other classics like Bride With White Hair, God of Gamblers, Iron Monkey and The East is Red, the Dragonball movie is terrible. By American standards, the film deserves some credit as a curiosity. By no stretch of the imagination is it a good film. It features terrible direction, less than zero acting, laughable special effects and a shoe thread (rather than shoe-string) budget. But exactly for these reasons, the film may appeal to fans of especially bad Z-grade movies and Ed Wood films and absolute Dragonball fanatics that have to watch absolutely everything.

On a related side note, although, as far as I know, the Dragonball Z version of Son Goku doesn’t have his own live-action movie, he does appear in a short cameo at the end of Wong Jing’s ultra-silly Street Fighter II rip-off HK film Future Cops. In the end of Future Cops, a nameless hero that looks exactly like Son Goku, complete with the orange and blue costume and pointy hair, appears to help several good Street Fighter characters, including Chun-Li, Ryu, and Blanka (a green beach ball with a face) fight the evil General Bison.