Dragonball Evolution Tops Asian Box Offices

dragonball-movie01.jpg

Dragonball Evolution, previews of which were much maligned by fans and critics alike, have defied expectations and topped box offices all over Asia.

Over the weekend, Dragonball was the number 1 movie in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.

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The movie grossed $3.4 million from 855 locales in China, and was 20th Century Fox’s fourth-highest weekend opening in the market.

The movie also made it to the number 2 spot in Japan, where it is buoyed by the dubbing talent of comedienne Aya Hirano, producing $3.3 million in ticket sales from 540 screens.

Critics have generally received the film negatively.

The movie premieres in North America and the UK on April 9th.

Via Hollywood Reporter.

Fans have complained about liberties taken with the story (even the Dragonball creator cannot bring himself to praise it), the casting of non-Asians, the acting, etc., yet still they crowd cinemas the world over, along with the general audience who are presumably the bulk of patrons.

Continued success looks set to guarantee a series of films for fans to bemoan, and then meekly watch.


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    Comment by Anon
    04:18 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    is a torrent out yet? Jesus christ do you guys realize that they signed on for two more? WHY GOD WHY?

    Comment by Riiku
    02:40 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Tchi.....

    I wont even try to download this.

    Comment by イチロ イノ Ichiro Ino
    02:51 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    on the pic.. there's some snake biting bulma's head...

    Comment by Anonymous
    02:57 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Shaharu you have absolutely no taste of what is good or not, so i suggest stop talking before embarrassing your self even more. I bet you find Uwe Bowl movies masterpieces.
    That movie is shit even if her name wasn't Dragonball.
    It's a Martial arts b-movie in all it's glory.
    Not all anime fans are so maniacs to blame every detail like you say and yes we are old enough to have seen the original Transformers. Well at least some of us.

    If you want to know what a good movie is go watch "Memoirs of a Geisha" or "House of Flying Daggers". Now that's how you make good movies.

    Comment by Riiku
    05:58 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    .... or "Drunken Master"

    You're so damn right man.

    Comment by Anonymous
    06:29 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    “Memoirs of a Geisha” or “House of Flying Daggers”?

    those suck.

    dark knight. or mebbe pirates. not THE pirates,the OTHER pirates.

    which is worse, this or chun li movie? at least kreuk is purty.

    Comment by Gex
    16:02 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    I hope you're not talking about Pirates of the Caribbean, because I fell asleep during the second movie and when I woke up near the end, I found out there was a sequel.

    Screw that.

    Avatar of Muzaffar
    Comment by Muzaffar
    02:34 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    I'm glad I choose to watch Watchmen instead of Dragonball, but I got to say both movies weren't really that good either way..... *sigh*
    So do I still regret not watching Dragonball? I hope not....

    Comment by Sinja
    01:57 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Japan needs to rectify this sin against them!!....

    Comment by Torauma Victim
    23:33 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Lolz... waste of my time lol again for wasting people's money...
    I would rather spend the length of time that the movie consist for browsing through this site.
    lolz...
    I think i wont bother even torrent it or buying fake one.
    The heck! I am just borrow from frens, watch it then discuss how bad it is with those who seen it...

    Then again i would rather watch dragon ball anime all over again instead. Even better if it is in full HD, that at least is more worthy than this crappy movie.

    Avatar of Raymond O
    Comment by Raymond Otaku Ting
    23:44 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    lots of people were drawn towards strange or abnormal stuffs...
    cause of excitement~

    How nice to be young...

    But still...the movie failed.

    Avatar of KLoWn
    Comment by KLoWn
    23:57 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    This is one movie im not gonna support, torrentz ftw.

    Comment by Kev
    23:24 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Oh great all this excitment makes me want to watch the movie...NOT!

    Avatar of Icy-nee-san
    Comment by Icy-nee-san
    23:00 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    I think ive lost the will to live D:

    Comment by Anonymous
    23:10 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    I'm sure it'll do fairly well in the US and Europe as well?
    Why? Well even though the vast majority of people are slating this movie, there's still that part of them that wants to watch it, either out of curiosity or deep down they think it looks enjoyable, even though it only remotely stays true to the original source material.

    Comment by Shaharu
    01:32 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Seriously, what are you all? 13 year olds?

    This is not the first nor the last anime/game to game adaptation. Get over it. Get USED to it.

    I'll be so very happy when you guys grow up and know the difference between a bad ADAPTATION work, and a bad MOVIE.

    I guess you all hated the Transformers movie, didn't you? OH WAIT, YOU DIDN'T BECAUSE YOU'RE ALL KIDS WHO NEVER EVEN WATCHED A FUCKING TRANSFORMERS EPISODE EXCEPT THE NEW ANIMATED SERIES.

    Do you know why people don't make PERFECT adaptations? Because it won't get to the mass market. It'll be aimed at you so-called "fans" who will probably torrent it and take the movie to the ground EVEN if it's perfect, since you guys can't get happy with anything. Even if they did a perfect, I dunno, Evangelion movie, you would be bawwing because "MAN, IN THE BATTLE AGAINST THE FIRST ANGEL SOME OF THE BUILDINGS WERE DIFFERENT, THIS MOVIE SUCKS".

    I really hope this movie gets a decent success, just to see you crying while fucking your dakimakura.

    Comment by ManaYagami
    05:25 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    The Transfomers movie sucked because of the "adpatation", but as a movie, it was well done. On the other hand, any Evangelion movie would suck just because of what it is based on. I would rather watch a movie based on Freud and Nietzsche.

    Comment by ManaYagami
    05:26 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Ups, I meant "adaptation". And I watched the fucking show on the 80s.

    Comment by Anonymous
    11:54 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    The Transformers movie wasn't a good adaptation, and it was an average and generic movie plotwise. Sure, the CGI was nice, but that comprised a minority of the screen time. However, that's what most people want to see, and DB doesn't have that.

    Avatar of Katameido
    Comment by MaidNiac
    01:45 18/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Well, i won't say the Transformers Movie was bad (in fact i found it awesome) even when it comes to the adaptation factor, mainly because there wasn't really that much epic stuffs in the original series (except for SEVERAL episodes and that movie where Optimus died) for them to retain for them in the live-action.

    The only complain that i have is that they failed to bring out Starscream's unique attitude/role as the cocky traitor of Megatron. In the live-action movie, he's just.. Megatron's side assistant who gets killed in a non honourable way. Heck, in the original one, his soul still lurked around even after getting burned to ashes by Galvatron. Oddly enough, even the horrible adaptation of GONZO actually keep him as the Decepticon plotter with his own agenda.

    Comment by Anonymous
    00:30 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Goku (justin chatwin) has a youtube channel!

    http://www.youtube.com/user/justinchatwin

    RAID!!!!!!!!!!

    Welp, who is my personal army anyway...forget it.

    Comment by Anonymous
    08:47 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Name me 1-3 episodes where piccolo did NOT have antennas and used a sword!

    Avatar of xzeldax3
    Comment by xzeldax3
    08:47 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    after DB live action, its time for blood the last vampire and akira

    Comment by Teacherzpet
    14:05 06/04/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    the same thing is probably going to happen here, thanks to the large amount of mentally-blind fanboy kids (one of the easiest markets to get money from in the world).

    Comment by Anonymous
    13:54 06/04/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    From this, i know that asian people watch movie based on title...stupid asians...

    Comment by Anonymous
    05:29 05/07/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    well if we dont watch your movies, who will? believe me, the movie industry will never survive without us asians...

    but this movie was crap though. oh well, at least the tickets here are cheap and it wasnt the worst movie i saw. still loses to 'Punch-Drunk Love' in that contest. :P

    Comment by Cliffjxn
    17:10 24/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Just so you all know, $10 million for 8 countries is not good. Not even in Asia. Hell, this movie should have done $15 million in Japan alone. Considering how popular it is there it should have broken records. It came in a number 3 there, behind 2 movies that had been out for 2 weeks. Plus, both those movies were on 200 fewer screens. As for China DBE was the only movie released that week. So, it being #1 isn't a surprise. Even so, it only made #1 by the skin of it's teeth. It only made about 290,000 more than Valkyrie and that had been out 3 weeks at the time. In any case it's been out for 2 weeks now and DBE has gone from #3 in Japan to #8. It's weekend take is down 59% and it's already being pulled from screens. So, yeah, it's actually bombing.

    Comment by X-PLODE
    04:20 26/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Saw it, was shit.

    Comment by Tony
    19:42 30/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    I'm wondering how did a 100 million dollar movie turn out to be worse then a 10 thousand dollar movie.

    Comment by liveevil
    10:25 12/05/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    no fucking way. firs feminists now this? twisted.

    Comment by Anonymous
    00:30 23/10/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    movie was so crap

    Comment by Anonymous
    21:37 23/10/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Jennifer Salt learns the truth about the Siamese twins in Sisters. ,

    Avatar of Elizebeth
    Comment by Elizebeth
    00:39 14/07/2012 # ! Neutral (0)

    This movie is poop!

    Comment by Anonymous
    23:40 22/10/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    The damnedest thing you ever saw! ,

    Comment by DuoMaxwell
    04:32 24/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Nappa: "Vegeta, what does the scouter say about this movie's absurdity level?"

    Vegeta: "It's over 9---"

    ::scouter explodes from overload::

    Vegeta: "Never mind."

    _______________________________

    This just makes me want to bang my head on the wall so hard...

    I mean seriously, you f'n gotta be f'n kidding me! A movie that barely has anything to do with the main Dragon Ball franchise and it scores one of the highest of Asian theaters?!

    ::sigh:: If people like to eat s**t, let them eat s**t.

    Comment by jonaht
    10:48 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    I'm not fucking going to watch it. "There is no climax" comment from my friends who watch everything. >..< LOL

    Comment by Anonymous
    12:25 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Yes, you know why they topped Malaysia Box Offices? This is because there are only two film being shown here (Bintulu, Malaysia) in the cinema. One of it is the local film and the other is Dragonball. LOL

    They are no screening WATCHMEN yet (probably never). WTF!

    Avatar of XerosXIII
    Comment by XIII
    15:18 18/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    yea they screening watchman at kl... not much people appreciate the movie unless there superman or spiderman in it =_=

    Avatar of Doriinatrix
    Comment by Doriinatrix
    11:11 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    I need to get me a group of nerd-boys and watch this, even just because it has Dragonball in the name...

    Comment by mai
    16:56 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    huweksss i never never see it

    Comment by Anonymous
    Comment by Tora Tora Tora
    16:46 18/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Hollywood could have done worse with this movie. They could have hired Van Damme.

    Comment by Anonymous
    23:37 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    It seems most of us just watch the movie to laugh at how they messed it up SO bad

    Comment by Anonymous
    20:01 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Concerning Justin Chatwin in the role of Goku... not to even get started on everyone else in taking their roles... (especially Chou Yun-Fat... like he NEEDED the money?!?!?!?)

    "I suppose some people are willing to destroy a legend to make some money. I thought you were alright in The Invisible, but now this, destroys any respect I once had"

    That is what I want to leave it at, but rarely are things that simple. I realize that most fan boys/girls had wet dreams when they heard of the movie and I am truly glad for them and hope they enjoy it as much as they expected. However for those of us that feel it is better to do something proper than do something horrible to make the same, if not more, amount of money... you see my point? I believe in forgiveness and loving your neighbor, but if someone asked me to play the part of Jesus in a blaintant mockery of God, type comedy movie, no matter how much they offered, I would turn it down, period.

    My issue is that the part was taken. Was there any research done? "Gee Mr. Rellium, this script doesn't seem to be anything like the Dragonball story..." Nope. Instead. "To hell if this kicks every fan in the genitals with an iron mace, it's money and I like money"

    I know someone is thinking it. "What if he had immediate expenses, like caring for his sickly mother or friend whom needs a surgery and he doesn't have enough... then surely you can't blame him for doing what he must"

    True enough, I don't know the full story, so you can all laugh at me if you want for being a narrow minded hypocrite in this specific scenario. All I ask is, why not tell the people, the fans for over 20 years, WHY he took the role. If it's anything to do with a selfless nature, then I am wrong in my assumption and you may ball tap me now. If not, then I ask, how he feel if someone sodomized a comic book or old story legend from his childhood in a movie?

    As far as the movie goes... if you don't relate it to Dragonball at all and take an unbiased approach towards the movie by itself, then it wasn't that bad. Some decent fight scenes, cheesy comedy, and barely half decent special effects.

    Comment by Anonymous
    22:00 17/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    watch this for teh lulz of the year!

    Comment by Saruda
    22:56 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Haha, Im'ma laugh when they take their profits from this movie to make a high budget sequel, and then nobody wants to see it.

    Comment by Anonymous
    15:48 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    This Fu**** up adaptation was beaten by another anime to movie adaptation.

    yes brother Yatterman Live Action Movie first rank in japanese box office,
    it is like they saying "we like adaptation that stay true to the original work"

    Avatar of Keigami
    Comment by Keigami
    16:03 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Piccolo looks like a burn victim... But I admit I'm also drawn to wanting to see it, just see how horrid it really is

    Avatar of EndohMimi
    Comment by Mimi
    15:37 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    lol i'm so excited to see this >.<

    Avatar of AVEN
    Comment by AVEN
    18:41 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    Don't lose your time D:... This movie sucks

    Avatar of Exia
    Comment by Exia
    15:35 16/03/2009 # ! Neutral (0)

    yeah the japanese voice acting probably saved it from being a really bad movie. That can only explain.






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