Live Action Anime

Two of DragonBall’s biggest stars, Justin Chatwin and Emmy Rossum, recently sat down with Japanese magazine Cinceon Walker for an interview on this year’s upcoming movie. DBtheMovie has the translation:

        Justin: To be honest, I felt strong pressure. Because my friends are all fans of DragonBall.

Emmy: Me too. I felt anxious because I’m a Dragonball fan and love the comics and anime. But when I got the role, I was incredibly happy. So I decided to enjoy it and to do my best as Bulma.

Justin: To me, to play Goku is such an honor.

The story of the movie is veiled in secrecy at this time. According to Justin, It seems that Goku will appear as a high school student.

Justin: Goku can’t fit in high school. A kind of outsider. And the death of his grandfather sets his fate up. So he starts on his journey and follows a different path.

Emmy: Bulma is a character who teams up with him. So we we get along pretty well. I acted a comical part with Chow Yun-Fat as Master Roshi. We were in Mexico and we could only speak English, so the three of us got together very well. I’m sure that our good team work will come through on film.

Justin: There are many action scenes that the director James Wong did carefully with visuals effects.

It seems that Justin had to train hard for the role.

Justin: For five months of shooting, I went to the gym after each day and worked out. I drank protein six times a day. So I was called the “Crazy Ninja” in Mexico City (laugh).

Emmy: Yeah, he was like a beast (laugh). Unlike Goku, my action scenes are using weapons and inventions. It was very hard but I think it made me mentally stronger.

Finally, we asked them about Japanese comics consistently coming to Hollywood in live-action.

Emmy: I think it’s because they have wonderful stories. In addition, they’re universal. It’s not surprising that Hollywood wants to make them into films.

Justin: Hollywood is superior in the technical things such as VFX, and they have various techniques   in storytelling so that they can make Japanese comics into film. This movie too, it’s a condensed version of the original comic’s epic story. It’s difficult to express themes like Goku’s spiritual awakening verbally, but on film it can be easily expressed for kids to understand.

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