Dragon Ball Z-Movie Special 1: Dead Zone (1989)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	Main Menu Audio & Animation Biographies-Character-Kami; Garlic.Jr; Garlic.Jr's Henchmen Trailer-The World's Strongest; The Tree Of Might Trailer-The History Of Trunks; Bardock-The Father Of Goku
Rating
Year Of Production	1989
Running Time	41:14 (Case: 45)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Daisuke Nishio
Studio Distributor	Toei Animation Madman Entertainment	Starring	Masaka Nozawa Hiromi Tsuru Toshio Furukawa
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$29.95	Music	Sunsuke Kikuchi

    With three young children in the family I must say that I am rather surprised that I have not come across Dragonball Z before this review. If you have not seen them before, there are films, TV series, and numerous retail tie-ins (such as books, toys, and games) in the Dragonball Z line. We have Pokemon and Transformers all over the house and .hack and Mermaid Melodies are current passions; but the reason may be in the fact that this disc is rated PG, and its contents are definitely not suitable for the younger members of the family.

    The film under review was produced in 1989, and is only one in a series of short movie-style episodes in the ongoing saga. Not being a big fan I'm unsure as to whether the TV series or these films came first. I found contradictory evidence on the Internet sites I checked (any of our readers care to submit an opinion?). In any case, this film has significant back story and while it can be viewed on its own it would fit in better with other entries in the series.

    The story begins with a short (and initially confusing) prologue in which a green skinned character called Piccolo is ambushed by a group of freaky looking villains. We cut to a scene in a pretty garden where a cute little boy is playing (I think he's a boy, although he has a furry tail). His name is Gohan and he ends up being kidnapped by the same villains we saw in the prologue. Apparently they are after the Dragon Ball ensconced on top of his hat - when they have all seven balls, their leader, Garlic Jr., will be able to summon an ancient dragon to grant him one wish.

    While they are gathering the rest of the balls, Gohan's father, Goku, sets out to rescue his son. He is joined by his friend Krillin and some other unexpected allies as well. Unfortunately, Garlic Jr. obtains all of the balls and is made immortal by his wish. He then sets about his plan of conquering the Earth, as he shouts "let it be drenched in blood". While fighting Goku and his friends, the evil one summons the Dead Zone of the title, which threatens to suck all of the earth into its dark interior. Will our heroes prevail?

    One problem you may encounter with this disc is deciding what the characters actually say. If you are a native Japanese speaker then there is no problem, just watch the original Japanese version. I watched this the first time in Japanese, with English subtitles. I then watched the English dub, and found that the translation was very different to that of the subtitles, to the extent that often key meanings were changed. As one example, "Divine Throne" in the subtitles was changed to "Throne of Kami" in the English dub, thereby removing any religious or spiritual connotation that it might have had. To make matters worse, the English for the Hearing Impaired subtitles often change the meaning yet again, so that you have 3 different English versions to choose from; I have no idea which is closest to the original.

    Apart from the confusion over the best translation, I found this a reasonably interesting viewing experience. The story is rather weak but it is supported by some nice animation, with a mix of styles used at various times (my favourite sequence comes between 16:53 and 17:26 during a very stylish flashback scene). The running time is rather short for the asking price, and there are some images which would disturb younger viewers, but fans of the show will most likely lap this up.

Video

    The video transfer is quite good, with vibrant colours and only occasional signs of damage.

    The aspect ratio of the transfer is 1.29:1 full frame, non 16x9 enhanced, which is just about the 1.37:1 ratio (or thereabouts) that this was most likely filmed at.

    Overall sharpness is good, with only an occasional hint of the fuzziness which can sometimes afflict older animation. There are few dark scenes, and shadow detail is average in them, but there is little low level noise.

    The colours are the best part of this whole show. The artists have really opened up their palette and use colour to very good effect, and it is vibrant at times in this transfer (check out the shot at 12:15 for one of the interesting images).

    There is some damage apparent, mostly the odd scratch or black vertical line. There are also some holes on the film at 9:57 and 24:12 at the top right where you would expect to see reel-change marks, but these look more like burn marks than reel-change marks. There is a little minor aliasing as well, but overall the picture is in good shape.

    I have already commented on the subtitles. The best I can suggest is to choose one set and go with it. I preferred watching the original Japanese with the English subtitles - they seemed a little more "authentic" than the dub or the Hearing Impaired set, though I have no evidence to support that feeling. For some reason one of the songs in the middle of the show is translated into English in the basic subtitles, but not in the Hearing Impaired set. Otherwise, the latter have some good indications of on-screen action such as "Birds Chirping" and "Groans".

    There is no layer change on this single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio transfer is acceptable, though a little on the strident side at times.

    There are two audio tracks, the original Japanese track and an English dub. Both are in Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo encoded at bitrates of 224 Kb/s. I listened to both in their entirety. The original Japanese voices seemed slightly better suited to the images of the characters on screen, though the English actors are also quite good.

    Dialogue is clear at all times, with the audio sync as good as can be expected from Japanese animation. The English dub follows the lip movements of the animated characters quite well.

    The music by Sunsuke Kikuchi is a strange mixture. It is melodramatic at times, and at other times quite sugary pop. Strangely, I rather enjoyed it. Watch for the lyrics of the opening and closing songs - they are quite bizarre.

    As this is a stereo track, surround presence is limited, though effective use is made of the entire front of the sound image. The subwoofer also contributes some quite significant bass during battle scenes (in fact, the battles are the best part of the audio transfer, with some quite effective thuds, "swooshes" and groans).

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    A small selection of extras, limited in their scope.

Menu

    The menu is animated with some (very quiet) music. You can choose to Play the Feature, Set up Language, Select Scenes or Explore Extras (not many to explore). The feature defaults to English with no subtitles if you choose the "Play the Feature" option. There are 17 scenes to select.

Biographies

    Three one page summaries of some of the characters in the show. No mention is made of the hero Goku or his son, which is a little unusual - perhaps I should have known all about them already?

Trailers

    Short trailers (varying from 0:31 to 1:20) of other Dragonball Z DVDs and videos. The colours are a bit washed out, but they were mildly interesting in giving me a bit of an insight into other parts of the DBZ universe.

    There is censorship information available for this title. Click here to read it (a new window will open). WARNING: Often these entries contain MAJOR plot spoilers.

    The Region 1 version of this DVD appears to include a censored English version, while the Japanese version is complete. This makes the Region 4 the preferred version. To complicate the issue slightly, the Region 1 also includes some deleted scenes from the TV series (not this movie). Please note that later versions of this DVD in Region 1 are apparently uncut, so if you want the missing scenes on this version then that might tip the balance in favour of the Region 1 for you, dependent upon cost.

    This is an interesting piece of animation, but a rather weak story. It is a little too violent for a very young audience, but fine for those just moving into their early teens, which I assume is the market audience. The picture is quite good, and the sound acceptable. The running time is very short for the asking price, and the extras rather poor, so that it is difficult to recommend to any except existing fans (who will want to add half a star to my overall rating).

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall