Jul 12, 2017
Dragon Ball: The Curse of the Blood Rubies, also known as The Legend of Shenlong, is a non-canonical retelling of the first arc in the Dragon Ball anime/manga, and that happens to be its main flaw.
Due to starting from the same point where the anime and manga began, the movie has to introduce the main cast. The problem is, while this process took approximately seven episodes in the source material, this movie is only an hour long.
The result is that the first half of this movie feels incredibly rushed; things happen at a lightning quick pace, and some events feel like they were put
...
in solely to make people go "ooh, it's that moment from the show!", with little to no regards for the pacing of the movie itself.
Once the introductions are done and over with, however, the movie becomes much more enjoyable. With worries about the runtime out of the way, the writers can focus on just writing our lovable cast interacting with each other and the setting, and it really is a blast.
The animation in the movie is stellar. Aside from a few select scenes, everything is very fluid and alive, and matches the mood of the source material.
The soundtrack is nothing special if you've seen the anime; it's the same soundtrack ported over. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, considering the anime's soundtrack was very good!
Much like the soundtrack, the main cast is simply ported over from the source, which is still not a bad thing; they may not be complex, but they're a fun bunch, and they're really what makes the final act of this movie so enjoyable. Although, certain characters feel wholly unnecessary to the story, and could have been cut out entirely, which would have helped the pacing issues.
For what it's worth, the antagonists manage to have a lot more personality than you'd expect. They're still not all that memorable, especially Bongo, resident "big muscly guy", but Pasta and the main villain himself, Gurumes are decent enough.
If you're a fan of Dragonball and you have about an hour of free time, this movie is not a bad choice to watch. The first half may be terribly paced, and many scenes will feel like they're only there because the writers thought "well, we can't leave this scene out", but it's still very well animated, and the second half is just a fun romp with the characters you know and love. That said, you probably won't be raring to see this movie a second or third time anytime soon.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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