SPOILER WARNING: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Justin Chatwin and Emmy Rossum as Goku and Bulma in "Dragonball Evolution"

Dragonball Evolution starts with Goku (Justin Chatwin) as an American Teenager who goes to high school in modern days. He lives with his grandfather, Gohan (Randall Duk Kim) in a huge mansion and practice martial arts with him. In school, Goku is an outcast because he is different and because his grandpa strongly advises him against starting a fight.

Meanwhile, Lord Piccolo (James Marsters) is freed after being sealed for 2,000 years by a group of masters. However, the movie didn’t state how Piccolo manage to escape. Together with his sidekick, Mai (Eriko Tamura), they travel in their spaceship to search for Dragonballs.

When Goku’s love interest at high school, Chi Chi (Jamie Chung) invites him to a party, he immediately agrees. It happens to be Goku’s birthday, who shares the same birthday as his grandpa. At the entrance to the party, Goku faces challenges from the school bullies. As he has promised his grandpa not to fight, he causes the gangsters to fight among themselves instead by dodging their every moves. Chi Chi is surprised and impressed by Goku and she wants to confess her real identity before Goku leaves in a hurry after sensing something wrong’s happening to his grandpa.

True indeed, when he reaches home, his house has collapsed and his grandpa is dying. Gohan tells his grandson about Piccolo’s release and his intention and to find Master Roshi (Chow Yun-Fat), as well as to find all the seven Dragonballs as the only way to capture Piccolo. As Goku’s grandpa passes away, an invader comes to the collapsed house searching for a 5-star Dragonball stolen by Piccolo. Her name is Bulma (Emmy Rossum) and she almost kills Goku since she has suspected Goku to be the thief. Only after Goku shows her his Dragonball (a birthday gift from his grandpa) has 4-star instead of 5, Bulma is convinced there are other Dragonballs and decides to find all of them so that she can fulfill her dream of becoming famous. Goku, on the other hand, invites Bulma to join his search for Dragonballs to stop Piccolo.

Despite the failure to find Master Roshi from the phone directory, an accidental encounter from the Dragonball radar puts Goku, Bulma and Master Roshi under the same roof. When Goku tells Roshi that Gohan has passed away and Piccolo is freed, they embark on a journey to find the remaining Dragonballs. While, traveling in the desert, they fall into a giant hole. Yamcha (Joon Park) finds them and offers to help them in return for some money. While Goku’s attempt to fly up fail each time, Master Roshi has little problem in doing that. But, once Roshi is up, Bulma’s radar has detected a Dragonball nearby.

As they continue their magical journey, Piccolo continues to watch over them and Mai manages to steal the Dragonballs by disguising as Chi Chi after getting a sample of her blood in a martial arts tournament. Before Piccolo manages to summon Shen Long, Goku and gang manages to reach there in time to stop him. But, they have a price to pay as Master Roshi dies in the hand of Goku when Goku turns into a monstrous monkey as the eclipse arrives. However, due to his strong will and determination, he transforms back into human form and manages to defeat Piccolo. In the end, Goku uses the seven Dragonballs to grant Master Roshi or Muten Roshi (as he likes to call himself) his life back.

After the credits have ended, it is shown that Piccolo is still alive and is being treated by a beautiful Japanese woman whose life has been spared by Piccolo during the search for Dragonball.

While, the movie challenges the norm and takes us to the modern era, fans of Dragon Ball will surely be disappointed by this live-action film. It’s almost like watching an hour and a half of Power Rangers, you know — high school, superheroes with hidden super powers, monsters, martial arts. You’ll get what I mean. Besides Piccolo’s realistically identical to the real character, Yamcha’s voice is amazingly same like the cartoon itself. Other than that, everything else is so mixed up — white boy as Goku, studies in an American high school which is located within the same area as some Japanese houses and temples and the likes. While, the effects is more than mediocre, and the actresses picked are hot and sexy, the way the epic saga is packed into an 85-minute film is just not right. Why the rush when the movie can be made into an epic like The Lord of the Rings? Even though the ending of the film gives us a hint there will be a possible sequel, it is perhaps a good way to tell us to avoid it. Just wait for The Hobbits for something truly epic, no more comic adaption movies besides Marvel’s.

My ratings: 6 out of 10.

Curse of the Golden Flower stars Chow Yun Fat as a gruesome Emperor of the Tang Dynasty while Gong Li plays the Empress; Jay Chou plays a faithful Prince Jai and Liu Ye plays crown Prince Wan.

The movie potrays Tang dynasty as a beautiful palace with displays of picturesque decoration and many beautiful maidens. All these maidens are beautiful and wears tube-like dressing displaying their colossal bosoms. One must wonder why Zhang Ziyi is not in this movie. Instead, the ever-so-voluptuous Li Man plays Prince Wan’s secret lover, Chan, who’s also the Imperial doctor’s daughter.

In this movie, the Empress (Gong Li) is assumably ill and the Emperor (Chow Yun Fat) has ordered his troop of Imperial medics to feed her with medicine every two hours for the past ten years. At one time, the Imperial doctor reveals it to his daughter that one of the ingredients for the medicine will eventually make the taker go insane and the emperor has ordered them to add that ingredient for ten days. Ironically, the Empress hired a secret investigator who happened to be the Imperial doctor’s wife and the Emperor’s former lover (also the mother of Prince Wan!).

Overall, there are a lot of twist and turn but it’s a predictable movie with not much to be awed at, except the beautiful bosoms, um… maidens. Period.

If you haven’t watched the movie, view the Curse of the Golden Flower trailer here