James Marsters aka Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) aka Brainiac (Smallville) will be playing the part of Piccolo in Dragonball. American website TV Guide managed to interview our Piccolo (Piccolo doing an interview?! lol) and he is really ecstatic about his role. This is the kind of enthusiasm we're looking for. We love you James even though you're the bad guy of the movie. This is an extract from the interview:
TV Guide: You're plunging into a big sci-fi feature next. Can you talk about the live-action Dragonball? Marsters: Dragonball is the coolest television cartoon in the last 50,000 years. Its only failing is that the female characters aren't drawn well — we're going to fix that in the movie. It's got a Shakespearean sense of good and evil and there are incredible action scenes with characters of unbelievable power. It's going to be really visually exciting. I was told the budget is about $100 million.
TV Guide: Nice to know you're so enthusiastic. Who do you play? Marsters: Lord Piccolo. He's thousands of years old and a very long time ago he used to be a force of good but got into a bad argument and was put into prison for 2,000 years. It got him very angry, and he finds a way to escape and then tries to destroy the world. The cool thing is, anybody who has seen Dragonball knows that Lord Piccolo transforms into a character named Piccolo, and that is a whole other ball of wax. That is one of the most popular characters in the whole series. I've been told I'm working for people who will just flay me alive if I give too much information, but what I can tell you is the character is green, bald and has pointed ears. Heroic wouldn't be the wrong term by the end, but it's a long journey.
You may know Emmy Rossum as an actress but some may not know that she's quite a good singer too with a lovely voice . Proof: check out the Phantom of the Opera movie where she sings to the music by the great Andrew Lloyd Webber. Also last year she released her first album, called Inside Out. This is Slow Me Down from the same album and man - this is quite an amazing song.
Just imagine how it would be if Bulma blogged on her adventures and on the people she met on her journeys through the whole Dragonball saga on her online blog. Wow, that would be some read! But unfortunately we ain't got that. However, we got the blog of the girl playing Bulma - Emmy Rossum! Check it out here. These are some extracts from her blog:
Since the new year I've been back on the set of "Dragonball." In addition to working in Durango, we've been shooting in some pretty remote yet stunning locations. So, I've been litterally "out of range" for a few days at a time. We shot in Mexiquillo, about 2 hours outside of Durango where the landscape is amazing and looks - in places - much like the forests of New England. The dense green trees reminded me of New Hampshire and Maine, and made me feel very at home. The sunrises and sunsets are really spectacularly beautiful.. Mexiquillo is pretty remote, and there weren't any hotels around, so we were actually "camping" in log cabins, all together. It was exactly what you'd imagine, campfires at night with smores and kumbaya... Okay, maybe not kumbaya, but we did do the smores! Its been a LOT of fun, especially bonding with the cast. All the actors get along great! After only a few weeks shooting we already have inside jokes and pretty much know each others life-stories. I've been listening to some harder music to access the edge inside me to bring to the character, some Lincoln Park and Dream Theater. I'm enjoying developing the character and training, learning to ride a motorcycle has been thrilling.. Its manual, so I've been learning all about clutch and throttle (don't laugh, this is all new to me!) And I think I'll be able to drive a stick-shift car after this film too!
Right now I am writing from a helicopter (with my costars, Chow Yun Fat, his lovely wife and Joon Park). We are on our way to the desert where we will be filming for the the next few days. I am the lucky one who gets to sit up front with the pilot (who was very careful to instruct me not to touch anything; knobs, controls or otherwise) Chow and Joon are taking pictures in the back and we are having a lot of fun. The landscape is alternating between, rolling sand dunes, green mountains dotted with cactus and farms layed out in geometric order with terracotta colored earth. I want you all to see what I see, so I'll upload some pics later when I can connect my camera to my laptop. Also, I'm attaching a picture from the cockpit right now!
To say the truth I am not quite fond of this interview with Justin Chatwin (Goku). It seems this guy does not realize how big Dragonball actually is. It's the most popular anime and cartoon on the planet and he's about to play the most important character in the movie! All I can do is pray "Please don't suck". I really wish this movie kicks ass. And I hope Justin's got more charisma while acting. Anyways, here's Justin's first interview.
Goku, Bulma, Roshi, Chi-Chi and Mei in the same room!! So we got (1) Justin Chatwin wearing a hood to hide his gelled hair (2) Master Chow Yun Fat (3) Emmy Rossum (4) Jamie Chung (5) sweet Eriko Tamura (6) Cheerful Emmy (7) Cast (8) the Dragonball chicks (9) Eriko and Jamie (10) Justin and a fan. Thanks to Movieland for the photos.
Every Dragonball fan remembers the circular rocky hills (ready to be blown up with every punch, kick or ki attack) that make up most of the Dragonball countryside. The photos below are recent shots on set and man I like those rocks. :) You can see even a glimpse of an orange uniform which reminds us of the uniform Master Roshi gave Goku and Krilin on their first Tenkaichi Budokai tournament. Enjoy.
These are some images taken off a Mexican newspaper. These photos show director James Wong (and assistant) supervising a training session for the extras. There appears to be quite a number of extras doing martial arts training - maybe we're in for some en masse fighting? Time will tell. Credit again goes to the Mexican blog Movieland.
Here we have the first set pictures of the forthcoming Dragonball movie. These were taken in Mexico City and we can see our Goku (Justin Chatwin) in an orange shirt walking past a cool looking yellow car with no number plate. I wonder if that car could shrink into one of Bulma's Capsule Corp capsules. Shooting will be mostly around Mexico while some scenes will be filmed in Los Angeles.
It wouldn't be Dragonball without the fighting. It has always been about beating the bad guys using every last bit of ki you've got. In other words, it would not be Dragonball without some really strong and menacing bad guys. We came to know that the Goku's nemesis in the movie will be Piccolo - the green alien demon from Namek. Everybody loves Piccolo. Ok he's a bad guy, but his tough looks and serious face make him one of the coolest bad guys that exist in the the Dragonball universe. James Marsters is going to play him. You may remember Mr. Marsters from Buffy or Smallville so he should have no problem with fantasy movies, CGI and green stuff. :)
Eriko Tamura will play Mai - one of the minions of Emperor Pilaf, the small blue guy who wants to dominate the world. The other minion is Shu who looks like some kind of dog and I guess it may be a digital character. Same for Pilaf. Eriko Tamura was last seen on the second season of Heroes as Princess Yaeko.
Bulma is the rich teenage girl who tells everything about the Dragonballs and their power to Goku. She was also the first person Goku ever met apart from his Grandpa Son Gohan. The lovely Bulma is going to be played by Emmy Rossum - a 21 year old actress star of Phantom of the Opera, The Day After Tomorrow and Poseidon. Sweet.
Chi-Chi is the little girl that falls for Goku. Since she's pure of heart like Goku, she flies behind Goku on his Flying Nimbus. Anyways many years later (spoiler lol) they marry and have kids whose father is never at home as he's busy saving the world or in the afterlife waiting to be resurrected back to Earth. Chi-chi will be played by Jamie Chung - a young Korean-American actress at the beginning of her acting career.
He's been a pirate. He's been a king. He's been a monk. He's been a killer. Now he's going to be old Master Roshi (the Turtle Hermit). He's Chow Yun Fat. Master Roshi is a really old kung fu master (and pervert) who lives on an island alone with his turtle.
Needless to say, when news spread that one of the most popular Chinese actors of our time was going to star in the Dragonball movie, the movie started to promote itself as the news was all over the movie news web sites. This is the perfect casting. Chow Yun Fat is perfect. His best movie so far... I'd go for Hard Boiled or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Justin Chatwin is a 25 year old actor who had the honor of working under the direction of the most profitable director ever - Stephen Spielberg - on War of the Worlds. He also did The Invisible and The Taken mini-series. Well ok, he is relatively unknown but we hope that his portrayal of the our beloved anime hero is as perfect as it should be. We're all with you Justin.
Here you go. This is the trailer of Chatin's latest movie The Invisible.
It is the job of the director to take an idea from a source such as a book, manga, game, actual event, his own mind or someone else's script and visualize it and incarnate into movie with its own visual feel and setting in order to tell a story on the big screen. Well, you may like it or not but that's my definition. :) Anyways, my point is that the director choice is important in any adaptation because if the captain of the ship got the wrong direction, then the whole ship's gonna go the wrong direction. And the director of the most important anime adaptation ever goes to... James Wong.
A quick look at his IMDB page and this guy made the Final Destination series and The One. Well, I loved The One. Ok it's miles away from better sci-fi action movies like The Matrix or Equilibrium but it's got it own look and the fight scenes are awesome. Check this out. This is the last few seconds of The One.
Title: Dragonball Release Date: 15th August 2007 Studio: 20th Century Fox Basic Synopsis: The film follows Goku and his quest to obtain the mystical Dragonballs before the evil Piccolo does. IMDB entry:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1098327/
Kame.. hame.. ha! Welcome to the Dragonball movie blog which will keep you updated on any news regarding the live action movie adaptation of the greatest anime and manga ever.
This is a fan blog on the upcoming Dragonball movie. Everything related to Dragonball is copyright of their respective owners including 20th Century Fox and Toei Animation.
James Marsters aka Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) aka Brainiac (Smallville) will be playing the part of Piccolo in Dragonball. American website TV Guide managed to interview our Piccolo (Piccolo doing an interview?! lol) and he is really ecstatic about his role. This is the kind of enthusiasm we're looking for. We love you James even though you're the bad guy of the movie. This is an extract from the interview:
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