MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*
This Taiwanese-Philippine production, the second live-action adaptation of the DRAGONBALL franchise, seem party patterned on the first anime film, CURSE OF THE BLOOD PEARLS, at least in terms of giving the main hero a more formidable first foe. Further, the tyrant looking for the wish-granting Dragon Balls, a bull-man named "King Horn," seems based on the folkloric Chinese figure sometimes translated as "Bull Devil King," whom I don't recall ever seeing in the manga from which the franchise arose.
Despite the overall cheap look of the production, the film tries to channel the "Star Wars" look at the opening. King Horn, who already possesses two of the legendary Dragon Balls, uses a giant spaceship and an army of costumed minions to ravage the countryside. For some reason he thinks the other five can be found in the same general area, which happens to be the case (largely for the convenience of the narrative). Despite all the sci-fi trappings, Horn's future antagonist, young Son Goku (Chi-Chiang Chen), seems to dwell in a bucolic fantasy-world with his kung-fu teacher, which reflects the fairy-tale atmosphere of the early manga stories. Goku has fantastic fighting-abilities and a magical battle-staff, though in the dubbed version I watched, he's called "Monkey Boy" but there are no obvious references to the manga's concept that the hero's a monkey-like ET who was adopted by a human teacher.
Other familiar characters from the manga, such as Bulma and Yamcha, get such new names as "Seetoo" and "Westwood," which may have some relevance to the licensing status of the movie. Seetoo is a feisty young woman who owns one of the dragon balls and seeks to find others, though for less villainous motives than King Horn. In the manga Bulma and Yamcha hook up, but the hour-and-a-half film can only touch on this romantic subplot. Seetoo's main function here is to get Goku out of his rural rut so that he's ready to oppose evil when King Horn comes calling. A few other characters appear-- Piggy, a pig-demon, and "Turtle Man," another kung-fu teacher-- but they're probably there largely to appeal to the DRAGONBALL fan base. There's another character, possibly derived from BLOOD PEARLS, and she wants the Dragonballs to revive all the people of her village, whom King Horn slew. There aren't that many more characters here than in the anime movie, but in the live-action movie, the support-characters seem to be tripping over one another.
If one can overlook some really bad FX work (Seetoo uses a bazooka to blow up an enemy, who's clearly a dummy being blasted). BEGINS is at least a watchable mediocrity, at least for the lively though not distinctive fight-scenes. Chen's naive young hero has a certain amount of charm, but he too seems to get lost in the overburdened plot. Still, I can't imagine why anyone would want to watch this version than one of the Japanese cartoon-movies.
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