WIth the success of the Sonic movie, is it time for Hollywood to revisit Dragon Ball?

[Kunzait_83]

If you do one that tries to capture the ki blasts/anime extravagance of the show, then I think you run into the problems faced by a ton of anime adaptations.

The problem I have here is you framing the "ki blast extravagance" aspect from the perspective that its unique to and mainly derivative from the anime or manga. When the reality is that this type of action (in all its over the top stylized glory as we know it from DB) was already done in live action long before DB (and other such anime/manga before DB like Fist of the North Star). Saying that a live action work that does this style of over the top Chi-centric action is mainly of a piece with anime or manga to the point of framing it as such completely disavows and ignores the near hundred year-long history it has in live action film before it ever appeared in any Japanese anime or manga.

The Burning of the Red Lotus Temple for example, is by most historical accounts the very first ever live action Wuxia film ever made, dating back in the mid/late 1920s silent film era: that film itself utilized much the same over the top "ki blast extravagance" that you're mainly equating with anime and anime adaptations here. Aura power ups, beams of light decimating the landscape, superhuman speed and martial arts techniques, and so on. As such, it marked some of the heaviest usage of rotoscope special effects techniques in silent film up to that point in order to portray that style of fantasy martial arts Chi-channeling techniques in as over the top a fashion. Just to give you an idea of how far back and how long established this type of fantasy martial arts action goes before DB and before anime and manga.

Dragon Ball takes so much of its identity and style from live action Wuxia films (and Wuxia media and concepts in general), that discussing a live action adaptation of it relies FAR less on adapting from anime and manga than you'd expect and far, far more on going back to the live action Wuxia film sources from which DB itself had derived so much from in the first place.

You already framed this properly earlier with regards to Kenshin and the like by pointing back to countless live action Chanbara/Samurai films that Kenshin itself is derived from. Dragon Ball, on that particular score at least, is NO different from Kenshin: its just derived from a different live action genre (that of Wuxia) than Kenshin is, one that has just as much its own established live action cinematic language as does Chanbara/Samurai cinema, and one that DB just as liberally cribbed from: in both its manga AND the anime alike.

[fleahop]

I feel like I roused the legendary Dragon Ball essayist from his slumber. With this I can die happy.

As far as your points go Kunzait, you've got some. This will have to be a case of agree to disagree unfortunately.

I will add that I like Wuxia. Quite a lot actually. It also has a great catalogue of films. Nothing against the genre at all.

[Robo4900]

Kunzait to the rescue!

I feel very strongly about this, and it's always frustrated me that people insist it just wouldn't work in live action, but I don't have the patience to argue my side on this at the moment beyond the short posts I've done so far here. Glad to see Kunzait say everything I want to say, and more, and far better than I ever could say any of it.

[MasenkoHA]

[quote If you do one that tries to capture the ki blasts/anime extravagance of the show, then I think you run into the problems faced by a ton of anime adaptations.

Billions of people went to see the Harry Potter films were the climax of the last film basically amounted to Harry and Voldemort having a magic color lightning battle with their wands.

Most MCU films end up being pew pew pew energy blast fest.

Forget wuxia films for a second fundamentally what is different between a ki blast battle in a theoretical live action Dragon Ball film and say this:

https://youtu.be/4fFMlolMo_Q


And no this is not an endorsement for a would be live action Dragon Ball film to be made by x MCU director

I understand the sentiment of not wanting or needing a live action Dragon Ball film but the idea that Dragon Ball won't work in live action because other live action anime films have sucked and here's a completely unrelated reason why Dragon Ball wouldn't work even though it has worked elsewhere is silly.


Goku's hair not translating well into live action isn't a reason guys.

[Yuji]

It definitely would work, but I think the more pertinent question that nobody is talking about is, do we want it to work?

As in, do we want the series to shift focus to live action movies if the first one is a success like Marvel has, and essentially make the comic and anime series an afterthought?

[Asin]

It definitely would work, but I think the more pertinent question that nobody is talking about is, do we want it to work?

As in, do we want the series to shift focus to live action movies if the first one is a success like Marvel has, and essentially make the comic and anime series an afterthought?

You bring up a good point. Imagine that if this hypothetical second attempt succeeds and we basically get bombarded with live action DB movies every damn year. That sounds like it would suck. I can see if they would go the route adaptations, we'd have some arcs broken into multiple movies, and we'd get to relive the arc fatigue all over again.

[goku the krump dancer]

It definitely would work, but I think the more pertinent question that nobody is talking about is, do we want it to work?

As in, do we want the series to shift focus to live action movies if the first one is a success like Marvel has, and essentially make the comic and anime series an afterthought?

Its not that the movies are so good that they eclipse the comics, its that the comics are so bad that they cant stay relevant despite the live action movies/tv shows giving them main stream spotlight.

Most people recognize Dragon Ball through the cartoon, there's no way a live action five part movie epic could ever eclipse it. Its not like Lord of The Rings or Game of Thrones where most people only learned of the books through the live action exposure.

[jjgp1112]

Like it's one thing if Dragon Ball Evolution was like, say The Last Airbender where they actually made a genuine effort to adapt the source material but just did it as poorly as possible (with a mix of ethnic erasure in the casting too!) - THAT I could see just turning the fanbase off forever to a movie. But, like, Fox didn't even TRY to capture Dragon Ball in Evolution. If you changed the names and terminology and read a description of the plot, Dragon Ball would have been near the every bottom on a list of guesses for what series it was adapting.

Evolution was a shitty mid-00s teen action movie with Dragon Ball terms slapped onto it, not a referendum that Dragon Ball wouldn't work in live action.

[goku the krump dancer]

Yeah with the right people behind it, it could be pretty good but lets not forget the Sonic movie only did as well as it has only after some MAJOR backlash and arm twisting from fans.

I have no interest in reactivating my twitter just to yell at whatever C-List director is behind the film because they went out of their way to design Goku and Freeza wrong.

[Hellspawn28]

It won't surprise me if Toriyama is like "Screw it. I will make a live action DB movie myself" considering how he hated DBE.

[Yuli Ban]

My only hang up about a live-action movie is that I fear that Hollywood will do the safe thing and just try retelling the main story in truncated form. All three live-action movies thus far tried the same thing, and admittedly the three original Dragon Ball movies also did the same thing, as well as Path to Power.
But a completely original scenario, even if it's a thinly veiled version of something that happened in the manga, would be a better bet for the silver screen, not unlike the Z movies.

To those who say that it can't be done?

I mean... East Asian cinema exists? It's not like Hollywood's the only place movies have ever been made.

Here's Child of Peach, the most "legally not Dragon Ball" movie ever made. A better live-action Dragon Ball movie than any of the ones we got: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXdgyfugzUs

Why not Storm Riders, which goes full-on with that sort of style of fighting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jfxh81v_srI

If you want something more modern, here's the Journey to the West movies done by Stephen Chow, which are suitably zany and are also martial arts fantasy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sX1cqyLyrU

Heck, it's a more pedestrian answer but one people seem to be aware of, but what about Kung Fu Hustle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoTVze2vzkI

Like, I don't really want to be rude, but whenever I hear people say "it just doesn't translate into live action at all and can't really be done," all I'm actually reading is "My entire frame of reference for action movies is the Bourne series, older MCU films, and Spy Kids, and someone I saw on YouTube who hates Dragon Ball Evolution and predominantly reviews children's cartoons said that Dragon Ball doesn't translate into live-action, so that's my opinion as well."

[JulieYBM]

Re Sakamoto: speak of the devil, someone uploaded a cool new look at some of his common directing traits. If by some stroke of luck he could direct a big budget film it would be so cool. https://youtu.be/CuqZQVnad14

I agree with not wanting to re-tell the original story all over again. I think big changes need to be made to do more than just repeat previous versions of Dragon Ball.

[Anonymous Friend]

A lot of people say a lot of things. You should see what people said about Keaton as Batman, Ledger as Joker. Jackman as Wolverine. Chris Evans as Captain America. Heck, didn't people say that you couldn't do a live action Lord of the Rings at one point. If we followed all the "this will never work" naysayers, we'd never've gotten many fantastic things.

And, I'll say it again and again, if Hollywood wants to keep spending 100s and 100s of million of dollars to keep trying, let them. Let these young filmmakers coming keep trying to make everyone's dream of a great live action anime movie come true. Some of these film makers have been making fantastic stuff on YouoTube for years.Even if Hollywood needs to spend a couple billion to find out how to not do it right.

[OmegaRockman]

If you want something more modern, here's the Journey to the West movies done by Stephen Chow, which are suitably zany and are also martial arts fantasy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sX1cqyLyrU

You know, I really liked that first movie (need to see the second) and I'm kicking myself now for not thinking of it as an example in my original reply! It even shows how Goku-esque hair could work in live action.

Re Sakamoto: speak of the devil, someone uploaded a cool new look at some of his common directing traits. If by some stroke of luck he could direct a big budget film it would be so cool. https://youtu.be/CuqZQVnad14

Speaking of forgetting stuff, I really should've mentioned how you suggesting Sakamoto as a potential DB director is an inspired idea, Julie. I'm a pretty big Sentai/PR guy who watches a couple Rider series on occasion, so I'd actually love to see this! Especially with that montage reminding how some of the coolest toku action comes from him.

[JulieYBM]

If you want something more modern, here's the Journey to the West movies done by Stephen Chow, which are suitably zany and are also martial arts fantasy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sX1cqyLyrU

You know, I really liked that first movie (need to see the second) and I'm kicking myself now for not thinking of it as an example in my original reply! It even shows how Goku-esque hair could work in live action.

Re Sakamoto: speak of the devil, someone uploaded a cool new look at some of his common directing traits. If by some stroke of luck he could direct a big budget film it would be so cool. https://youtu.be/CuqZQVnad14

Speaking of forgetting stuff, I really should've mentioned how you suggesting Sakamoto as a potential DB director is an inspired idea, Julie. I'm a pretty big Sentai/PR guy who watches a couple Rider series on occasion, so I'd actually love to see this! Especially with that montage reminding how some of the coolest toku action comes from him.

Rider and Sentai in general have really good directing, especially for the dialogue scenes. I'd also love to see Kamihoriuchi direct a live action Dragon Ball. His work on Kamen Rider Zero-One was so good!

[Pafupafu]

Dragon Ball is an epic decades long tale that requires more than just a single film to translate properly. Especially to start getting into the meat of the action/iconic Z-era content. The origin story isn’t modern or narratively strong enough to carry a theatrical film in 2022 and is so far away from the cosmic action serial genre that it becomes that it’s not worth investing in as a set up film.

We’ve seen endless fan films and all of them try to pull off the Saiyan Saga or Z-era content packed with characters and battles - that’s where the popularity lies and isn’t something told properly in a few hours. Dragon Ball is made to require a major time investment in readers/viewers.

My vote would be for a limited series, seven episodes that somehow blends an early 20’s Son Goku in the Tenkaichi Budokai with a high stakes Dragon Ball hunt. Those are two staples to the introduction of Dragon Ball and just usually have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Rely heavily on well choreographed fighting and FX, with quick flashbacks to tell some key story beats. Then end on a Piccolo or Saiyan cliffhanger.

[JulieYBM]

I would adapt the Saiyan arc but not literally. Borrow the major beats but make use of the fact that there does not need to be a religious restriction to a prior 195 chapters of story and go from there.

[Dragon Ball Ireland]

The length, and trying to condense too much into less than 2 hours is something I would have genuine concerns about. I think The Magic Begins and Evolution have taught it can't be done on a low budget, so that likely won't be an issue whenever there's a new live action movie coming.

A series would be good, and allow more breathing room for the major story arcs. By the looks of things the Netflix One Piece series is going ahead. That will be very telling as to whether or not we could see the streaming giant try their hand at Dragon Ball, though with the number of popular anime they've adapted and the fact they're currently trying a Toriyama-inspired one its not a stretch to say they will go for it soon.

[DBZAOTA482]

A live-action Dragon Ball movie definitely could work but they would have to scale back on the crazy feats. Evolution failed because it was a low-effort cash-in that appealed to nobody.

A movie made by someone with genuine love and passion for the franchise no doubt would be a hit.

It would even develop into a full-fledged series. The first covers the Searh for the Dragon Ball and 21st Tenkaichi Budokai arcs, the second Red Ribbon Army and 22nd Tenkaichi Budokai arcs, and third Piccolo Daimao and 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai arcs.

[Rafa Fast]

I'm definitely not interested, everything existent in the franchise, from GT to Bio Broly, from Garlic Jr. Arc to Copy Vegeta arc, everything, catches up my eyes, everything except a hollywood live action, for me there's no way that a live action can have the same feeling as the games, anime and manga, Evolution looked like everything else except DB, and it's the only thing in the whole franchise that I absolutely deslike, this franchise can't translate well to a western live action imo, Sonic is different, the franchise was build up to have a appeal on the Western audience, the dialogue, acting, in both movies really fits a american production, I can only see a live action of DB working if it's a Japanese production, Hollywood shouldn't touch it anymore imo, Japaneses work different, their reception to the franchise is not equal to the way that we from the western, receive it.