Dragonball Fans Alight

August seems light years away and our appetite for anything related to the Dragonball movie increases exponentially by the day. We need something to satifsy our hunger. The official promotion did not kick off yet but .. but... but we can see how fans from around the world are promoting the movie in their own ways. Just type "dragonball movie trailer" in YouTube and you will find lots of fan-made trailers (some crappy, some good).

I have surfed and searched the net and these are my favourites. On the left you can see a fake movie poster by Jamce which is really awesome and slick. Below is a very well made fake Dragonball movie trailer by Masongoliver.

Dragonball Fans Alight

Stephen Chow on Dragonball

Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle are two fantastic Hong Kong movies and all star Stephen Chow who is also their director and writer. Every Dragonball fan out there should watch one of these Asian movies. They are brilliant, funny and uniquely blend CGI with comedy and martial arts. Stephen Chow is a god in Hong Kong and he's also the producer of the upcoming Dragonball movie. Unfortunately but understandably, Stephen is only supervising director James Wong and not helping out in the day to day shooting of the movie. Obviously this is James Wong's movie who, may I remind you, has also credits on the script. Below is an extract from an article on ComingSoon.net:

Most recently, Chow has been involved as a producer on director James Wong's Dragonball, mainly supervising the script and offering advice and guidance on the bigger picture, but he said that the whole process of working on an American film has been very smooth, with the film being close to shooting. Although Chow's involvement would make one think that it would be done in the style of Kung Fu Hustle, he said that Wong is a capable director who has his own ideas of how the film should look.

Stephen Chow on Dragonball

Temple of The Dragon - Pics

So let's start with the facts. This big set is called the Temple of The Dragon and is gonna be the place where the climax of story takes place. Our guess: lots of fight scenes and the appearance of Shenlong (Shenron in Italian\Funimation dub). If you do not know what or who Shenlong is you should not be reading this blog. Also this big set might be Pilaf's castle - which is where Shenlong appeared for the first time in the Dragonball anime and manga. Yep. Here are some pictures of the set courtesy of Movieland.

Temple of The Dragon - Pics

70% of Filming Ready

Director James Wong completed 70% of the filming. Yep. Obviously once filming is complete there's the post-production stuff like editing, CGI work, soundtrack mixing, etc. Which brings a thought - how will the soundtrack be and how will the theme song sound like? I wish the main theme is captivating and memorable, like say the Lord of the Rings theme or Indiana Jones theme. Btw, Movieland also reports that the promotion of the Dragonball movie is unlikely to kick off before summer. Well my friends, it seems we still got some time to wait till the official Dragonball The Movie website goes online. It seems Funimation Entertainment (holders of the Dragonball licence) have acquired both www.dragonballthemovie.com and www.dragonballmovie.com amongst other domains. These do not work right now and you have to wait some more months. Don't hold your breath.

70% of Filming Ready

High School Photo

I was informed that the Dragonballmovieblog ..erm.. blog have got a cool photo of some students attending High School in the Dragonball movie. So here's the photo. From left we got Emi (Shavon Kirksey) who will be Chichi's best friend, a football player called Agundas (Richard Blake) and Carey Fuller (Texas Battle) who will be the school bully. Then there's Chichi (Jamie Chung) and Goku (Justin Chatwin).
Nice photo but I'm a little pissed here - High School?!? School was never ever mentioned in the first Dragonball series!! Goku going to school?! Goku reading a book?! Wtf? Ok Gohan went to the Orange Star High School in Dragonball Z but his father only knew one thing - how to fight. Well, there nothin we can do. Let's just pray it is not anything like Sky High.

High School Photo

First Dragonball Spoilers

Some extras for the shooting of Dragonball in Durango (Mexico) talked to the god sent Movieland blog on their experience on set during the filming of a tournament fight. Yep, you read right: TOURNAMENT fight. Cool! The best parts in the first Dragonball saga were the fights in the Tenkaichi Budokai tournaments. The first one (21st edition) was won by Jackie Chun (Master Roshi), the second by Goku and the third by Piccolo. Here we got some information on a fight scene in which some extras participated. You've been warned - it's a spoiler.

• Chichi fights Mai - and wins as Mai gives up. Goku shouts "well done" to Chichi. Mai is booed as she leaves the ring but grins at her hand when she gets a knife (or something else) out of her pocket. What will she do with the knife? Will she hurt Chichi? Find out in the live action movie adaption of Dragonball out next August.

• Chichi wears a red dress while Mai fights in a black leather outfit.

• The fight did not involve any wires (so no Crouching Mai, Hidden Chichi I guess)

• Jamie Chung (Chichi) hurt her right arm but it was nothing to worry about.

• The extras were given flags, scarfs, large 'No1' hand gloves and drums.

First Dragonball Spoilers

The Keymaker is Grandpa Gohan

Grandpa Gohan is the one who found and took care of young Goku until passing away (unfortunately Goku may have killed him while being transformed in the Oozaru form during a full moon). He taught martial arts and manners to Goku but Goku only learnt the former. Goku then named his first son Gohan in respect of his loving grandpa. In the upcoming Dragonball movie, actor Randall Duk Kim will play the part of the grandfather. You definetly remember Mr. Randall as the keymaker in the second Matrix movie - Matrix Reloaded. He was the guy everybody wanted as he was able to open the backdoors within the Matrix (btw, he end's up dead in that movie too).

Good luck Grandpa Gohan!

The Keymaker is Grandpa Gohan