4 April 2009 / 1:54 pm / Posted in Art, Creative, Movies, Tech
I had the great fortune of watching the Philippine preview/premiere of Dragonball Evolution last Thursday, April 2, at SM North EDSA, all thanks to Bong =) — yes, for free. Was pretty skeptical since I heard from friends that it wasn’t good. Further, when I first saw the trailer months back, I kept complaining as to why the protagonist, Goku, was a white guy. I would’ve preferred the hero to be Asian, of course.
Right from the beginning of the movie up till the end, I was taken aback and was just kept in surreal awe and wonder. The movie was so clear — both in terms of visuals as well as story. In fact, it’s the clearest movie I’ve ever seen on the big screen. I deem that it played a major contributing factor for the stickiness of the movie. I understand that the cinema uses the D-Cinema system from Texas Instruments. Rather amazing I should say.
During the end credits, one name drew attention: Stephen Chow. You see, I’m an avid fan of Asian movies — especially Chinese and Southeast Asian ones. If you’ve seen Kung Fu Hustle and/or Shaolin Soccer, you would’ve noticed that the cinematography as well as martial arts choreography of Dragonball Evolution is very similar to those of the former two. When I saw Stephen’s name as the movie’s producer, it all became very clear.
While almost all, if not all, of the characters were Asian, it was very smart of them to place a white guy, who looked Eurasian, to play the role of Goku. I now understand that it’s a very good way to market the movie to the West and adds a breath of fresh air to this much-loved anime.
Dragonball Evolution’s Philippine preview - sponsored by SM Cinemas and Net-25, among others.
May 24th, 2009 at 2:13 am
The movie disappointed me. I used to wait for the anime back when I was a kid.
I don’t know. Maybe I just got used to long fight sequences.
The ending fight was like a small fart from a large elephant.