Is the new Dragon Ball movie racist?
Hey Dragon Ball fans, are you tired of playing Dragon Ball Burst Limit on your PS3 or Xbox 360 and looking forward to the new Dragon Ball movie? Well I sure am not, it’s looking questionable at best with more details revealed.
Okay folks the first fresh batch of Dragon Ball pictures have been released and I have to say they are not pretty. I am a hardcore Dragon Ball fan, I watched every single episode even the dreaded GT series and have played practically all of the Dragon Ball games from Gameboy to PS3. That is why I am so disappointed with this farce of a movie they call Dragon Ball.
Historically movies that originated from other mediums such as video games or cartoons/anime do not succeed at the box office that well, such as Mario Brothers the movie. Actually I could name quite a few more such as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. However on the flip side there are those that are successful such as Resident Evil and Transformers.
Dragon Ball the movie looks awkward and a bit racist as well. One of the most obvious thing you notice is Goku the main character of Dragon Ball is, well not Asian like Goku is suppose to be. Goku is played by Justin Chatwin from Josie and the Pussycats. Could they just not find some Asian guy to play the part? There has to be somebody except Justin Chatwin.
Goku (Justin Chatwin)
However ironically, everyone else is practically Asian in the movie such as: Gohan(Randall Duk Kim), Master Roshi(Chow Yun-Fat), Yamcha(Joon Park), Mai(Eriko Tamura), and Chi Chi(Jamie Chung). It seems the producers thought they could fool us into believing Justin Chatwin was Asian if they surrounded him with other Asians.
Yamcha (Joon Park)
If you thought those liberties were outrageous take a look at Piccolo who is played by James Marsters the pretty boy vampire for Buffy the Vampire. Not only is Marsters playing Piccolo, Piccolo is missing his native Planet Namek signature antennas as well as his green hue.
Piccolo (James Marsters)
Piccolo looks like more like Dracula in the movie then anything else with his velvet red jacket on.
I am a bit sad and disappointed that Hollywood managed to ruin one of my beloved childhood favorite. It looks like I will be skipping out on this one, there is always next time just look at Batman.
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26 Responses to “Is the new Dragon Ball movie racist?”
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September 3rd, 2008
Congratulations! You just added yourself to the ever growing list of whining fan boys who’s dreams got shattered by Hollywood! Also congrats for connecting this to gamer.blorge by the slimmest of dieting threads.
Ahhh I remember when they released the pictures of Optimus Prime! Those were fun days to read SuperHeroHype & AICN…
Transformers got really badly ripped on by ‘actual’ Transformers fans (but hey, it was fun just to see big robots rumble
). It did however make a butt load of cash at the box office.
Resi, a hit? The movies made 39, 50 and 50 mil at the box office (NA), that’s no big hit. Altho they probably only cost a dime to make… I’m sure Milla was only paid 3 cents.
Anywhoos, its not racism at all. Just Hollywood doing its thing to try to target the movie and make the most $$$.
I am sorry Hollywood is going to take your love and rape it. Next time accuse them of eating babies or something.
September 3rd, 2008
Sw,
what are you talking about Resident Evil is considered pretty successful for a video game to film, even all the media reported the series as topping box office numbers.
People thought Transformers would bomb until pictures were released and everyone shut up, pictures of Dragon Ball looks pretty bad… I have a feeling its going to flop pretty bad.
September 3rd, 2008
I agree, this movie is total crap.. Michael Bay needs to make this movie.
SW you need to get the stick out of your ass, we want to hear stuff like this – I play all the Dragon Ball video games and a movie rip is as interesting as it is revelvant.
Glad to see a more indepth rip on the movie then Kotaku did on their site.
September 4th, 2008
well.. this is nothing new… I knew it would be crap… and even if it wins a million Oscars (which it wouldnt) I would still say its crap…
Its DBZ… while I LOVED it when I was a wee lad… I grew out of it… I dont hate it… but I find The Avatar more mature… because my taste has improved… though I still play the games…
the sad part is… its made by that guy who made Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer… both movies were great and I loved em… and he is a DBZ fan… so its sad that he is gonna be the one to fuck up DBZ… though GT is crap… WHY THE HELL DOES TRUCKS WEAR SHORTS!!! what is wrong with him??
but if you dont like my opinion……. imagine…
Kamehameha…. in Live action…
DBZ supah fast fighting… in live action…
I rest my case…
September 4th, 2008
Rofl BRad.
How do you expect me to react when I see yet another fan boy rant because ‘THEIR’ movie got ruined & on top of that, accuses it of racism which is outright retarded.
Yawn.
September 4th, 2008
So I won’t agree Resi was a runaway sucess, but I will change my statement to “average/above average” as these were the only movies I could find that were not made before 2000 and were not pokemon that actually match, exceed, or come close to its box office (at least in NA).
Tomb raider :: $129mil
Tomb raider 2 :: $65mil
Hitman :: $39mil
Silent Hill :: 46mil
Dead or Alive :: $260,713 <– BWHAHAHA
But even so, I stand by my original statement! Don’t cry and throw accusations around because they are not creating a movie in the image you wanted it to be. Now its sleep time
September 4th, 2008
it should be in the image that the fans want it to be… they are the ones who have stuck to it all these years… they are the ones who have supported it… and they dont want it to get fucked up…
and all those 5 movies that you listed… all of them were a joke… and proves that stupid people will pay to watch shitty movies…
Since when does agent 47 “fall in love”… aw… so sweet… falling in love with a hooker… thats Oscar gold… the same way a shower scene in the Tomb raider movie is a cinematographic “masterpiece”
September 4th, 2008
Racist? Who are you calling a rice picker???
September 4th, 2008
The Resi films were awful. AWFUL.
I didn’t mind Silent Hill, though. It made a genuine effort.
September 4th, 2008
Same thing they did to Superman. They fu#@ked it up royally.
But you know your going to watch it so why bother saying your not?
September 4th, 2008
Hey! Don’t pick on the Mario movie too much. It had nothing to do with Mario except a man named Mario was a character, but even though it failed terribly in looking anything at all like any Mario game created (in its time, or to today, and most likely ever), it was a decent movie in and of itself.
I want never a big fan of dragonball after Freeza (how many levels until the glowing hair gets so long everyone in the universe smothers in it?) but even I’m willing to give it a shot.
Even if they blow it and make it nothing like Dragon Ball, who’s to say it won’t be a good movie, anyway?
September 4th, 2008
@DWH Thats my point
People were screaming ‘wow teh resi made teh moniezzzz!!!’ but they were all terrible movies (altho I havn’t seen the 3rd so maybe its awesome……), I also havn’t seen hitman because it looks horrible.
And I agree with you, you want the movie made for the fans, thats great but its not my point. My point was not to bitch and whine calling the movie racist just because it doesn’t fit what the fans want in a movie. The same kind of thing happened with transformers when it was revealed that prime & co wouldn’t be ‘blocky’.
September 4th, 2008
I think the REAL issue here is…. why is Piccolo not green??
-Arvis
September 4th, 2008
I was never aware that Goku was originally Asian. I was under the impression that he came from another planet.
September 4th, 2008
Tomoyo,
Well Goku is Asian from the planet he is from. If you watch the prequel movie about Goku birth father, you see the Sayians have different race like Caucasian and Asians, just like Humans.
Hence Goku’s birth name is ã‚«ã‚«ãƒãƒƒãƒˆ, Kakarotto (a Japanese name) as well as his adopted name is Goku a Japanese name also.
September 5th, 2008
Just because the cartoons and manga are Japanese, it doesn’t mean the characters have to be.
And you mention Batman. You mean the one with the Irish Ras Al Ghul, or the one with the unrecognizable Joker with his mouth cut open?
I’ll wait and watch the movie before I decide how it does. And a live action movie is always going to be different than it’s source material (except for Sin City.)
September 5th, 2008
Goku should be asian? He’s a fucking alien! I think YOU’RE racist in insisting that aliens from other planets look asian!
September 6th, 2008
100 million dollars for 2 hours of crap. Piccolo isn’t green , Goku isn’t a kid, and Master Roshi lives with people.This will make 50 million, take the top spot for a week in the box office standings and then fade away like an old dying namekian.
September 7th, 2008
L:,
dud your stupid, you think an alien species like the Sayians don’t have races like black, asian, white?
Obviously if you watched the prequels you would know the Sayians look like humans with tails, and they have races like Asian, whites and blacks.
Isn’t Superman considered white even though he is an alien? In that same tokken don’t you think Japanese creators made Goku Asian, thats given.
If you don’t understand this concept your a lot ignorant then I thought.
September 10th, 2008
Goku isn’t from china-japan, or other likewise country…noob….he is a sajin….and i guess they are white. it’s not racist.
September 14th, 2008
mr.t plays gohan
September 27th, 2008
Ok this situation is similar to transformers like with megatron and shit (His face looking like it got smashed in glass). Like in transformers they at least made attempts as close as possible to keep the characters original like Peter Cullen voice of the original Optimus. This has almost nothing original left in it. like James Marsters has the basic face to do piccolo (with his like thin face) but the make up and design done to him is far from originality.
This image from google is way better http://www.zonalibre.org/blog/mandanga/archives/piccolo.jpg
And for goku i got nothing against him being white or w.e but justin chatwin just doesnt have the chemistry or anything about him to play the our HERO.
And my suggestion is that they probably should have made chow yun fat grow that master roshi BEARD trademark. (I kinda thot it was his trademark and all)
September 27th, 2008
I totally agree like in MY OPINION if i had to choose a Goku it’d be like this:
if it were based on like an adult goku with family i’d think of stephen chow who starred in kung fu hustle and shoalin soccer he’d make an Ok guy…like dude his fighting scene at the end in kung fu hustle was kool like for me they could use SOMETHING like that for the dragonball movie
but if it this were to be central on like more around the teen years i’d go with Tony Jaa from Ong Bak
September 28th, 2008
first of all goku just cause goku’s name was an asian name doesnt make him asian, what were they gonna call him “Tony”? hes from another planet he has no distinguising white or asian features as he is a cartoon. And although I am annoyed with the appearance of piccolo and roshi, the movie will still probably be a decent watch, you can’t deny seeing a powered up beautifuly mastered computer animated kamehameha on the big screen. I see no reason why goku HAS to be asian, and I could only recieve the insinuation that he is as slightly racist in of itself. I personally and a normal non racist person wouldnt really care if he was white or asian, he’s a cartoon. So get over yourself buddy, enjoy the movie for what it is and let go of ur bias. It will most likely be a high paced action movie with kamehamehas and special beams, could you ask for anything else?
September 28th, 2008
Umm fags u should chill out the guy said in his OWN OPINION, but i also dont rlly care if the guy who play goku is white, but somebody other then justin chatwin like theres plenty of other white guys who would be better – like can anyone agree with me that the guy they chose just doesnt fit the guy?
October 7th, 2008
Didn’t they know that Akira Toriyama(Creator of DB & DBZ) based Goku on Sun Wukong??? And Dragonball was based on Journey to the West!? And that the Dragonball Series was heavily influenced by Chinese Culture!!
And Goku has an Asian Outfit that is inspired by the Shaolin Monk’s. Goku has black hair, black eyes and most specially “White Asian Skin” not White Caucasian Freckled Skin. Seriously speaking!! Do you see any freckles on Goku’s face??? Because Caucasian people’s face are sprinkled with freckles(Just search the word freckles on google for more info).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freckles