Recently, there has been news regarding 20th Century Fox trying to rush the live action Dragonball Z movie into production. In this article from the Montreal Gazette, it mentions that the $100 million budget film will start production in Montreal, Canada sometime in 2008 and scheduled to be released in 2010. The long awaited live action release of Akira Toriyama’s Dragonball manga is finally coming to pass, after constant delays. There has not been any updates regarding the actual plotline or cast, however, actor James Kyson Lee (who plays Ando on the popular television series, Heroes) had recently mentioned that they had tried out for the role of Yamcha, the bald sidekick of the main character, Son Goku. The above is actually an old promotional poster from 20th Century Fox, however, I’d assume new promotional material will be released in the future.

Though the prospect of having one of the most popular Japanese anime/manga be adapted into a live action film sounds cool, I’m afraid that the end result could be cheesy and corny with the bright costumes and funky hairstyles. If the director and producer can make the characters look more realistic (like the Transformers movies), and make the atmosphere more dark, then perhaps it could actually work out. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

-Stephen