Although the film was born out of Toriyama Akira's comic book "Dragon Ball", which is popular in Asia, don't expect Hollywood to be loyal to the original when adapting oriental classics, because the North American market will always be the main position of Hollywood's box office nuggets, and the American audience is the primary object of their efforts. Therefore, it is not surprising that Sun Wukong (that is, Wu Kun in the film) has become an American high school student. In this regard, it is unnecessary for fans of "Dragon Ball" to complain too much. Except for the names, personalities, and character relationships that are slightly similar to the original, other characters are hardly reminiscent of the classic characters in the original. When the "Youth version of Lucy Liu" is Qiqi, the Tomb Raider version is Bulma, the "Aunt's Postmodern Life Edition" is Turtle Immortal, the vampire zombie version is Piccolo, and the Korean uncle's version of Yamucha (corresponding to the original work) When Le Ping (Le Ping) appeared on the screen one after another, and when the No. 1 Martial Arts Competition in the World became the Guangdong Provincial Municipal (Taishan) Martial Arts Competition, it was inevitable that the eyes of comic fans would continue to "light and thunder".
The film also seldom pays homage to the original work in other aspects, so suddenly seeing Wu Kun take out a meat stick and gnaw it, and put on the orange turtle training clothes at the end, it makes people feel abrupt and uncomfortable. However, there is a paragraph that pays homage to Fa Ge, which looks quite interesting. Wu Kun dressed up to go to the party at Kiki's house, smeared thick wax on his hair from front to back, and pretended to hold a match in his mouth. Great, I acted handsome with myself in front of the mirror, but I didn't expect the straight hair to bounce off the wax all of a sudden. Here seems to imply a subtext of the film: "If you want to be the God of Gamblers and Brother Pony, let's talk about it in twenty years!"
Although it is easy to cause a strong backlash from fans, the failure to establish a new one is the fundamental reason for the failure of the film. When adapting the original work, the screenwriter seemed overconfident and lacked confidence. First, he confidently changed the original book into a mess, and when it was time to fill in new content and details, he was overwhelmed and had to go to other Hollywood films to steal the scene. At the beginning, the plot of Wu Kun's crush on the female classmate Kiki and subduing the bad classmate just by dodging is very similar to "Spider-Man", and when his hand touches the Dragon Ball, he enters the horror fantasy land is very similar to "The Lord of the Rings", Bulma leather jacket and double guns immediately make people feel Thinking of "Tomb Raider", the process of throwing the portable capsule into a motorcycle definitely comes from "Transformers". In short, everything looks familiar, but unlike "Dragon Ball", it doesn't have the grandeur of the original comics and movies adapted from American classic comics. Don't listen to the producer's nonsense about investing 100 million US dollars. Judging from the quality of the film, the cost is 50 million to 60 million US dollars, and it may even be lower.
The lackluster action scenes and shoddy production make the film into the abyss of irreversibility. The first few action scenes are a bit interesting. The super slow motion captured by high-speed photography has a good sense of beauty and detailed expression. Especially the action scenes of Wu Kun subduing a group of bad classmates without taking action are quite beautiful. It can be seen that is carefully designed. However, the action scenes after that have not been interesting. There are neither pleasing moves nor thrilling scenes, which completely exposes the main actors' lack of real kung fu and the lack of creativity in action guidance. The battle at the end is even more irritating. The battles in the original work are all started with the fists and kicks of breaking mountains and rocks, and gradually set off to the climax of the shock wave. However, the film directly omits the wonderful kung fu sparring, which will only make the protagonist throw shock waves indiscriminately. Moreover, the director has no idea about the appearance of the shock wave. The shock wave in the original book is similar to the laser cannon in the American sci-fi film, with condensed energy and strong power, rather than the soft and weak "qi" shape in the film. The shockwave duel is not even as strong as the impact of the comics. Therefore, the full name of the film "Dragon Ball: Total Evolution" seems like an irony no matter how you look at it, and it is more suitable for the true level of the film when it is understood as "complete degradation".
Although the producer of "Dragon Ball" is Zhou Xingchi and the director is Huang Yiyu, the oriental charm of the film is not comparable to that of "Kung Fu King" directed by foreigners. It is not surprising to analyze it carefully. First of all, Zhou Xingchi is a nominal producer. When he came to Beijing last time to promote "Changjiang No. 7", he personally confirmed that he was not in charge of the production work, but only helped with the screenwriting. The Asian propaganda star of "Dragon Ball" has never appeared, and it is estimated that he wants to try his best to distance himself from this bad film. As for director Huang Yiyu, it is not worth mentioning. He went to the United States from Hong Kong with his family when he was 10 years old. Apart from having a Chinese name, he did not even speak Chinese for a long time. He was basically a "banana man with yellow skin and white flesh". "It's like a daydream to expect him to be able to make a film that combines Chinese and Western tastes like Ang Lee. Take a look at the "Savior", "Death is Coming" and other films he has made before. In terms of standard, it is also a B-level film. If you hand over a classic work like "Dragon Ball" to him, then you can't beat the pot. ?
In terms of actors, all the female stars have lost their luster. Jamie Chung, a Korean-American actor who plays Kiki, is immature, Japanese-American actor Mizuko Tamura, who plays the female villain, is too old, and American actor Amy Rossam, who plays Boomer, uses excessive makeup It's vulgar, and it completely loses the pure energy in "The Day After Tomorrow" and "Poseidon". The male star is not much better. The long face of Korean actor Park Joon-hyung who plays Ya Mucha is too scary, and the small body of James Masters who plays Piccolo is too shabby. It can only be that the muscles are not enough armor. get together. Fortunately, Justin Chatwin is a handsome young man with full of energy, and it is reasonable to play the leading role. The best part is our brother Fa. Although he has neither shaved his head nor a tortoise shell, his appearance is nothing like the turtle fairy in the book, but the old urchin character who is disrespectful to the old and has a good tone of skin is really similar to the book. The characters in the film are very similar, and people can't help laughing when they appear on the stage. Their expressions and body language are charming, and almost one person makes up the whole film. As long as Brother Fa appears, the people next to him are instantly eclipsed. It is said that Brother Fa's salary for acting in this film is as much as the sum of the other leading actors, so it seems that it is not really overpowering, but it is worth the money. (Text / Levin)
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