IMDb RATING
4.3/10
1.3K
YOUR RATING
An evil alien searches the Earth for seven "Dragon Pearls" which can grant him ultimate power. A gang of misfit adventurers band together to stop him.An evil alien searches the Earth for seven "Dragon Pearls" which can grant him ultimate power. A gang of misfit adventurers band together to stop him.An evil alien searches the Earth for seven "Dragon Pearls" which can grant him ultimate power. A gang of misfit adventurers band together to stop him.
Chi-Chiang Chen
- Monkey Boy
- (as Charles Chen Zi-Qiang)
Tung-Chuan Cheng
- Westwood
- (as Tung-Chuen Cheng)
Ying-Hung Chiu
- Jen-Jen's father
- (as Yao Ying Hung)
- Director
- Writers
- Ching-Kang Yao
- Akira Toriyama(uncredited)
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaChronologically speaking, this is the second live-action adaptation of Akira Toriyama's "Dragon Ball" manga (although an unlicensed and therefore unofficial adaptation).
- GoofsIn nearly in every fight scene, a wire is visible., most notably when Monkey Boy is flying through the Forest, the camera follows him from afar, but that white wire is clearly visible.
- Crazy creditsThe Ultimate Edition version's end credits feature a shot of CGI animation of Monkey Boy fighting against Westwood.
- Alternate versionsIn the Ultimate Edition version, a majority of the special effects have been redesigned by placing CGI over them. While the opening and close credits were both extended and redone with CGI.
- ConnectionsEdited into The Incredible Monk (2018)
Featured review
For Kids??? Extremely Bad, But Made Me Laugh.
When you first sit down to watch this movie, keep in mind that you are about to see something you've probably never seen before. Keep in mind that this is a movie where they obviously spent INSANE amounts of cash on explosions and not enough on acting or anything else for that matter. The crazy thing I noticed is that every character is completely over-portrayed, and it seems (most of the time anyhow) that the film had been 'sped-up' to make the characters move faster! (I wonder if the Hong Kong version was dubbed too?) I understand the cartoon had this, but it doesn't work for live-action. It just looks odd... as if the camera crew decided to act because they couldn't afford real actors.
The English version is horribly dubbed, and the character's words do not match the mouths at all. I would have preffered subtitles, but since this is a kids movie, and since some kids cannot read well, I'll let it go. But there is something extremely odd about this movie. It's supposedly a kids movie, but there's a lot of material about SEX, RAPE, and STRIPPING which isn't exactly for young Western audiences. (In the Orient, they have different laws and sexuality in children's movies is much more accepted). But parents be warned! There is a scene where two characters talk about rape, multiple scenes where people say 'sex maniac' and a scene where this insanely young japanese girl does a sexy dance for one of the 'sex maniacs' and shows him her breasts! Who was this movie made for anyway?
Oh, and the special effects are laughable. You can tell the spaceship-like things that bomb the village are cardboard cutouts (or animation, I wasn't sure) that look unconvincing, even to a kid. The makers of this movie left out a lot of cool things from the cartoon, simply because they couldn't budget the kind of money they'd need. I didn't like how the names of all the characters were changed... it made me wonder if this movie was made by the same people as Dragon Ball Z.
I don't really recommed this movie to anyone. Kids, adults, or Dragon Ball Z fans. It's just a poor representation of the cartoon, and obviously, one will be able to tell that this movie was rushed and no care whatsoever was put into it. I won't even get into the camerawork... just wait until the end credits at the still picture that sits there for 2 minutes... most of the shots are not framed correctly AT ALL and the movie just seems made by amateurs. Grainy film quality too.
Just all around horrible!!!!
The English version is horribly dubbed, and the character's words do not match the mouths at all. I would have preffered subtitles, but since this is a kids movie, and since some kids cannot read well, I'll let it go. But there is something extremely odd about this movie. It's supposedly a kids movie, but there's a lot of material about SEX, RAPE, and STRIPPING which isn't exactly for young Western audiences. (In the Orient, they have different laws and sexuality in children's movies is much more accepted). But parents be warned! There is a scene where two characters talk about rape, multiple scenes where people say 'sex maniac' and a scene where this insanely young japanese girl does a sexy dance for one of the 'sex maniacs' and shows him her breasts! Who was this movie made for anyway?
Oh, and the special effects are laughable. You can tell the spaceship-like things that bomb the village are cardboard cutouts (or animation, I wasn't sure) that look unconvincing, even to a kid. The makers of this movie left out a lot of cool things from the cartoon, simply because they couldn't budget the kind of money they'd need. I didn't like how the names of all the characters were changed... it made me wonder if this movie was made by the same people as Dragon Ball Z.
I don't really recommed this movie to anyone. Kids, adults, or Dragon Ball Z fans. It's just a poor representation of the cartoon, and obviously, one will be able to tell that this movie was rushed and no care whatsoever was put into it. I won't even get into the camerawork... just wait until the end credits at the still picture that sits there for 2 minutes... most of the shots are not framed correctly AT ALL and the movie just seems made by amateurs. Grainy film quality too.
Just all around horrible!!!!
helpful•59
- winstonsmith_84
- Sep 5, 2001
- How long is Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins?Powered by Alexa
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- Dragon Ball: Ultimate Edition
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