New Seven Dragon Ball

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AKA: New Seven Dragonball, Dragonball: The Movie, Dragon Pearl, Dragonball: The Magic Begins, Dragonball: Ultimate Edition

Year of release: 1991

Genre: martial arts/comedy

Director: Chan Jun-Leung

Action directors: Philip So, Yau Ying-Hung

Producer: Chow On-Hung

Writer: Yiu Hing-Hong

Cinematography: Liao Ching-Song

Music: Chik Yue-Lung

Editor: Wong Jing-Cheung

Stars: Chan Chi-Keung, Lee Yee-Kuen, Tse Kam-Yin, Cheng Tung-Chuen, Wong Chung-Yue

Not rated; contains IIA-level violence and language

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Even though this particular reviewer has very little experience with the original Dragonball material, I could forsee internet geeks the world over getting out their torches and pitchforks after seeing New Seven Dragon Ball. I wouldn't go that far, but it did inspire me to bust out a couple of cold shots of Jagermeister to try and erase the poorly-implemented cinematic machinations of the previous ninety minutes from my short-term memory.

Again, since basically the only Dragonball-related items I've seen has been Dragonball Evolution (aka "Chow Yun-Fat really needed a paycheck") and some random episodes of the dubbed version of the anime at 3 AM after a failing battle versus a bottle of Wild Turkey, I can't say how true New Seven Dragon Ball is to the source material. But supposedly, the film-makers could only afford to get the rights to some of the characters, and so this movie takes that handful of anime misfits and plants them in a poorly-cribbed version of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.

This results in a mish-mash that is both boring and confusing at the same time. From the get-go, this is a movie that makes absolutely no sense and annoys the hell out of you. Case in point: early on, the evil alien overlord villain leads an assault on a village where his silver toga swaddled henchmen fly into town in spaceships (shown via extremely crappy CGI) and then attack the populace with M-16s. What the hell? Did Mr. Overlord need to save a couple of bucks before diving head-first into his quest to take over the world by hitting up Dick Cheney's yard sale?

New Seven Dragon Ball is just an awful movie. Now, before you go saying that I'm some kind of self-important cinema snob, keep in mind that this site just gave at least somewhat positive reviews to not just one, but two, Godfrey Ho movies: Robo Vampire and Ninja Terminator, films that offer up elements like white guys dressed in camouflage ninja suits and a poor man's Robocop getting into a brawl with a topless Italian ghost. As stupid as those descriptions sound, and as the product ends up being, at least they offer up at least some modicum of interest and entertainment, neither of which New Seven Dragon Ball can manage to queef out.

RATING: 3