Hogan Reviews

The fourth Dragon Ball film is a real oddity as it was actually created after all 13 Dragon Ball Z films and was released as Dragon Ball GT was airing, meaning there is a noticeable uptick in animation quality; some of the designs were redone, especially Goku as he is literally the Kid Goku from DBGT complete with yellow trousers and pink armbands (at least later in the film), and there are moments of definite Z/GT style “powering up”. Despite all this though it re-adapts the first story arc (again!) but adds in the Red Ribbon Army instead of Pilaf (I’d say “again!” but the RRA here is mostly the characters not used in the previous film) so it definitely fits into the same mould as the three previous DB films, just with higher production values and a longer runtime. Does it work? Let’s take a look!

The film kicks off as normal for something adapting the first story arc in that we see Goku heading home after fishing getting hit by Bulma riding a car. Goku attacks thinking it’s a monster but is soon convinced that Bulma is human and is then told of her search for the Dragon Balls, including the one he has at his home that he thinks contains the soul of his Grandpa Gohan. They decide to team up to find all the balls and on their journey they meet Oolong changed into the form of a demon before being forced to become his regular pig-self, and then immediately they’re attacked by Yamcha and Puar, the latter recognising Oolong as a pervert from ever-mysterious shape-shifting school and the former starting to get the better of a hungry Goku before being ran off at the sight of Bulma due to his fear of girls. So standard original DB arc stuff, just condensed. It’s here where the story takes a shift towards the Red Ribbon Army arc as Goku, Bulma and Oolong (with Yamcha and Puar tailing) arrive at Muscle Tower.

Goku defends himself from the monstrous car beast… I know he and Gohan lived in a remote area but couldn’t Gohan at least show him pictures of technology or something?

A completely redesigned General White (I mean completely, he went from a burly light-purple haired man in a thick green jumper to a thin black haired man in an orange jumper) sends his troops and Major Metallitron after the intruders but they’re soon taken out by Goku, who makes his way up to White’s office. There the General “unleashes” Android 8 who fights Goku for a while (including using … arse rockets?) but when given the order to kill he refuses, befriends Goku and helps take down White before Goku and “Eighter” have a snowball fight while the General watches, tied to a tree. We then snap back to the original arc and readapt the Goku sleeping on top of Bulma and being shocked she “has no balls” scene and the whole Turtle and Master Roshi stuff, yes including the perverted Turtle Hermit only agreeing to give up his Dragon Ball if the young teenage girl shows him her panties only for her to lift up her skirt to reveal nothing but… yeah, because Goku took off her panties when she had no … *sigh*, well, anyway…

Goku is given Kinto’un / Flying Nimbus and all looks happy and fun until General Blue and his large flotilla of battleships and submarines arrive and bombard them, and although Roshi’s Kamehameha wave takes out a few boats they’re all rendered unconscious and captured, apart from Goku who was knocked away, with Blue not realising he had a Dragon Ball on his person. General Blue is executed for his failure while Bulma and co. are put behind bars at RRA HQ while Goku wakes up, finds the Dragon Radar and hops onto his magic cloud to fly towards his friends.

Android 8 during his brief moment of being threatening.

As I said the production values are way high (at least coming off of the three 80s films) and the soundtrack is good, though the reusing of “Dan Dan Kokoro Hikareteku” as the closing film is weird because it’s far, far too ingrained in my mind as the DBGT opening theme. Same goes for Goku’s design honestly, it’s a weird mishmash in general honestly, but not a bad one. The finale is very dramatic in a serious way in which the original series rarely was, as I’ll get to in the spoiler section, but that also doesn’t help its case in feeling like a Dragon Ball film…

Overall Thoughts:

Assistant Black showing off the fact this this version of him has hair! … At least he would if his head wasn’t in front of a black background… He does have hair this time, I promise!

“The Path to Power” is a weird mix of original Dragon Ball plot and humour with GT visuals and some Z/GT style effects / powering up. It’s a real oddity in the massive vault of Dragon Ball movies and specials but it’s also a very fun one, the extra time allowing for a more well rounded story and I do enjoy how they weave the Red Ribbon Army stuff into the original plot arc. Good fun, and now we say goodbye to child Goku (not counting GT, it’ll be a fair few years before we get there!) as we finally begin to cover the final DB arc next time…

Goku arrives as Red Ribbon Army HQ and defeats a whole host of soldiers and tanks on his way to the main building, where Bulma, Oolong, Yamcha, Puar and Roshi have already escaped. Meanwhile Assistant Black finds out about Commander Red’s true wish, not for world domination but to be taller, so he shoots him dead before piloting the battle jacket, which is now three or four times the size it was in the original show. Goku is out matched but before he is killed Android 8 arrives and is destroyed protecting Goku from a massive blast.

Goku goes regular Saiyan 2, or something.

Goku wakes up to find the remains of Eighter and thinks about how the same must have happened to his Grandpa and so lets out a horrifying cry while doing a proper “turning Super Saiyan without the golden hair” style power up sequence and firing a massive Kamehameha blast that destroys Black and the mech. Everyone gathers together, Bulma and Yamcha realise that their respective wishes of a boyfriend and to not be afraid of girls have both been fulfilled by falling for each other so Goku uses the Dragon Balls to wish for Eighter to be restored (but without the bomb in his body, for extra DBZ-ness) as the credits roll.