DragonBoxZTheMovies wrote:Was just reading another review in this thread on Reddit:
http://www.reddit.com/r/dbz/comments/32 ... n_f_movie/
The DBZ Reddit is surprisingly...readable.
PART 1
I think I do prefer Battle of Gods, but this film is definitely a lot of fun.
Battle of Gods was very much a story and character-driven film; from the introduction of Beerus and Whis to Vegeta's 'My Bulma' and Gohan's 'I'm a daddy!' sequence, the film was steeped in development. It opened many new pathways for the series that I think got a lot of people excited for the future.
Fukkatsu no F is very much a film that focuses on action over everything else. It doesn't tread a whole lot of new ground, but there's plenty set up to be explored in the future. Despite the intense focus on action for a majority of the film, the first 40 minutes do feature nice little moments with our familiar characters:
We get to see Kuririn in an all-out car chase which ends with him jump kicking two goons off a bike before his phone rings with the 'We Are!' theme from One Piece (a reference to Kuririn's Japanese voice actor, Mayumi Tanaka, who also voices Luffy). This is followed by an awesome scene where he asks #18 to shave his head. As he flies off, #18 mutters to herself "kakkoii" aka "so cool!".
Jaco arrives at Bulma's place and we get to see some hilarious interaction between the two as he warns her that Freeza is coming..."In one hour!". Since Bulma's never seen Freeza before, Jaco draws her a picture which looks a bit like this. It's amazing.
As Goku and Vegeta are off training with Whis, the scene then ends with Bulma trying to summon Whis with a giant bowl of ice cream. She's all high pitched with a cute "Whiisss-san!! Whiiiiiis-san!". It reminded me of a person trying to get their dog inside with a treat. It's a really great scene.
This leads us to Goku and Vegeta fighting in tandem against Whis. It's really nicely animated and is quite a departure from the usual fighting we get in the series. This film is very much focused on 'real' martial arts. There's still the trademark flurry of punches and kicks, but a majority of the film is highly choreographed - kinda like this.
I appreciate some fans felt it was more akin to the early Dragon Ball fights rather than the later ones, but I think Yamamuro managed to combine the two very nicely, even if I do find his compositions rather flat.
After this reintroduction is done with, Freeza is finally on Earth. Yes, it's that fast of a transition. One of the many instances in the film where things just move far too fast for their own good. The entire opening sequence takes place four months before anything I've mentioned so far and yet there's nothing to really tie the two together. It's very incongruous.
Anyway, the Z Warriors [and Bulma] are ready and waiting (Kuririn, Tenshinhan, Kamesen'nin, Jaco, Gohan and Piccolo). Freeza launches his 1000-soldier army at the gang and the first significant fight begins.
This fight has some absolutely amazing moments. Kamesen'nin bulks up, jabs his staff into the ground and hops on top of it while ten or so goons lunge at him. He then jumps up as they crash into each other and launches a huge Kamehameha to blow them all away.
Jaco (voiced by Hanae Natsuki aka Kaneki in Tokyo Ghoul) is being chased by a good few hundred, too. He leads them into a cliff before backflipping over them and diving into the water. As they stand over him sending ki blasts into the water, a giant fish pops up and eats them. It's such a perfect moment for a brilliantly funny character.
Gohan fans need not worry as he gets some of the most well animated scenes. One of the best moments involves a slow-mo sequence where he dips between about 20 enemies, hitting their vital points, before he stops, time speeds up again and they all drop to the ground.
However, I think my favourite moment of this 1000-warrior sequence has to involve Piccolo. He leads a huge bunch of enemies into a cavern before stopping dead in his tracks and turning to face them. He takes off his weighted hat and hands it to an enemy, who is instantly smashed into the ground from the weight of it. Piccolo then takes off his cape and throws it at the remaining enemies, who also fall into the ground.
There's some more awesome sequences with Tenshinhan, but the entire 1000-warrior fight ends with Freeza's new strongest solider, the horned Shisami, sent out to fight Piccolo.
Despite what the trailer leads you to think, he does not get 'one-shotted'. They exchange blows for a while before Piccolo launches a (terribly animated) Makankosappo at Shisami. However, he dodges it before catching Piccolo totally off guard and knocking him out.
This 'caught off guard' theme is actually one of the major recurring themes of the film and is part of a key plot point later on.
Following this, Gohan steps in, turns Super Saiyan in an awesome sequence and then one-shots Shisami. However, Gohan then returns to his normal state before Freeza catches him off guard (see the theme?) and kills him in one punch. Sumitomo's awesome score comes in with this incredibly dark chant that reminded me of Duel of the Fates. It's a deeply disturbing moment, but luckily Piccolo resuscitates him with a small ki blast to the chest, allowing Kuririn to give him a senzu bean to bring him back around.
And that pretty much ends that entire 1000-warrior sequence of events. It's an absolutely amazing sight to behold. It's great to see all of these fighters finally getting their chance to shine again. It's well and truly fanservice, but it's fanservice done right!
Goku and Vegeta arrive, and after some bickering about taking turns, Goku steps in to fight Freeza. First, Freeza transforms into his (regular sized) fourth form. It's a great sequence that's pretty much a darker, grander version of his first to second transformation from the series. Goku then increases his ki and they begin to fight.
What's really interesting about this scene is the lack of music. It's silent apart from the sound effects, which are huge. You've never heard punches that sound this good before. They are earth-shakingly powerful, and on top of the sounds of mountains crumbling, they do a great job of conveying just how strong these two are.
This goes on for a while until Goku transforms into his blue-haired form, which he describes as 'a Super Saiyan with the power of the Super Saiyan God'. Freeza then transforms into his Golden Form and the second part of the fight begins. You've seen all of this in the trailers, so you should know that it's a fantastic moment.
Unfortunately, I can't say I really loved a majority of the fight that follows it. The animation is rife with unsightly CGI that really turned me off. Fortunately, once they emerge from the smoke of the volcano, it returns back to traditional animation for the better. The fight then ends with Goku tanking a punch to the face from Freeza before delivering a one inch punch in return to Freeza's chest. Goku then sends a large Kamehameha at Freeza to bring him to the ground.
Freeza is extremely upset at this point and starts to scream while apparently powering up. Fortunately, it appears he's out of energy as he drops to his knees. Goku stands over him, unaware that Freeza is gesturing to Sorbet. Unaware of anything, Goku is shot through the heart by an energy blast from Sorbet's ring (More examples of this caught off-guard theme!)
I'd read the plot summary, so I was well aware that it was coming, but it still took me entirely by surprise. Freeza proceeds to ruthlessly stamp on Goku over and over, before flipping him on his back and digging his foot right into Goku's wound. He then sends him flying into a cliff.
It's a level of violence we haven't seen from the franchise in a long time. I was genuinely surprised at how brutal it was. It is definitely not pleasant viewing material. Amazing scene though!
Part 2
Vegeta then steps in to help. I cannot describe his presence than anything but intense. Horikawa's voice acting is amazing during this part. Anyone looking for a callback to the Vegeta of old will be more than happy. He's still very much Battle of Gods Vegeta, in that he cares about everyone, but he's much darker and more akin to his Boo arc appearance, I feel.
He talks about the destruction of Planet Vegeta before telling Kuririn to come and grab Goku and give him a senzu. This pretty much begins my favourite portion of the film, and what is really the intended highlight of it, too.
As Kuririn flies towards them, Freeza launches a ki disc at him. Vegeta teleports and knocks it away from Kuririn, right in the direction of Sorbet (RIP!).
After this, Vegeta then transforms into the blue form and begins to slowly walk towards Freeza; spouting off in his usual arrogant way. Freeza looks panicked and responds with a flurry of ki blasts. These don't affect Vegeta at all and he walks right through them; glaring right at Freeza. After a short conversation, Vegeta punches Freeza right in the stomach and begins his beatdown.
The entire sequence features the best animation of the entire film. It looks incredible. Everything is wonderfully framed, beautifully smooth, and incredibly well drawn. It's short but it rivals the Shida cut we got in Battle of Gods where Goku bursts out of the rocks against Beerus.
The scene features no music. It's carried entirely by it's incredible sound effects. They shake the entire room. The beatdown is absolutely one-sided and ends with Freeza dropping back into his regular fourth form. Vegeta finally gets to stand over Freeza triumphant.
As I'm sure many know by now, Freeza then decides to destroy the Earth in a last ditch attempt at victory (Vegeta is caught off guard! Woo themes!). He punches the ground over and over before it explodes around them. Tornadoes of fire erupt from the earth in a nice callback to Namek's destruction.
Whis quickly wraps up Kuririn, Tenshinhan, Kamesen'nin, Jaco, Gohan, Piccolo, Bulma, Beerus and Goku in a bubble and transports them above Earth, just in time to see it explode.
Bulma breaks down and begins to cry over 'Vegeta, Trunks, Papa and Mama'. It's a short but touching moment. The group looks totally defeated before Whis reveals that he can turn back time. Something he uses to restore the planets that Beerus unreasonably destroys.
He taps his staff on the ground before time begins to rewind and we rewatch Freeza on his knees again. Just before he destroys the Earth, Goku teleport in and launches a giant Kamehameha to finish him off.
In an extremely brief denouement, Goku apologises and explains to Vegeta why he stole the kill. Whis tells them that if they'd worked together, they would have won. Vegeta and Goku both agree that that is never going to happen. There's a little bit more talking and the film finally ends.
In a post-credits scene, Freeza is back in his cocoon in hell, he yells 'Nooooooo!' (in English) and that wraps up everything.
Overall, I enjoyed the film a lot. I don't think it's perfect as it has some real pacing and structure issues. It lacks a distinct middle and a lot of the transitions in time feel very disjointed. The ending is extremely sudden and doesn't really satisfy you in the same way that Battle of Gods did. There's nothing to indicate a sequel and the only real potential for new content comes from the Blue Super Saiyan.
However, the battles are a real joy to watch. The character interaction is absolutely fantastic, and being a Toriyama-written film, they all feel very much like themselves. Vegeta's beatdown against Freeza is one of the most memorable moments from the entire franchise, and the new sound effects are incredible.
If you can get over some minor continuity stuff, there's a really enjoyable film underneath that should satisfy those wanting more Battle of Gods stuff and those who just really wanted to see these characters beat the shit out of each other again.
This sounds good. Really, really good.
The fight scenes in this movie sound absolutely amazing. I think the more realistic approach is really fascinating, and I think this will be very appealing to casual fans of the show. But that's not to say that hard-core fans won't enjoy it either. It almost seems like the series is re-finding its roots with the more elaborate choreography. I know a lot of people got tired of the heavy emphasis on ki-based attacks, rather than on the actual martial arts, in the latter parts of the franchise. With these movies, they're really pushing the elements that made the series so strong initially; such as the characters, the humour, the fighting etc. You can tell they're trying really hard to give it a slightly old school vibe.
If there's another movie, I have to wonder if Yamamuro around will continue as the director.
Was also reading about
Volume F on the main site:
set to compile the complete script of the film, along with “inside stories” on the script, conceptual material with Toriyama’s comments, and his commentary on the film itself.
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/2015/04/12/re ... previewed/
It sounds like this contains everything I'm after.
I doubt Julian or Herms would go through the torture of translating the full script, though, haha. Still looking forward to whatever tidbits it contains. In a perfect world, there'd be a translated, hard-cover version of this thrown in with FUNi's home release. I must admit, I'd really like to see a special edition re-release of this and BOG in future. I feel like the new films providing the perfect opportunity to put out some pretty nifty collector's items.
