We'll give Akira Toriyama a much more fitting piece to honor him with later this month, but this is Kurumada's 50th Anniversary year... and it's April Fools' Day.
Dragon Ball was a smash hit, and with it (initially, at least) being focused on martial arts it only made sense that there'd be people who wanted to adapt it into live-action. Over in Korea & Taiwan two unofficial movie adaptations were produced: 1990's Dragon Ball: Fight Son Goku, Win Son Goku (which is known for being the most accurate live-action adaptation) & 1991's Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins (which actually got a licensed release in English by Tai Seng in the 00s). Legendary action star Jackie Chan voiced interest in producing an official live-action adaptation back in 1995 but admitted that it'd require special effects & a budget that was simply untenable at the time. It wouldn't be until 2002 that Shueisha finally sold the live-action rights to Dragon Ball, in this case to 20th Century Fox, and while Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle) was approached to direct (& was a fan of the manga), he declined & simply agreed to help produce, since he only wished the direct stories that he created; he'd later break that vow somewhat when he co-directed 2013's Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. Eventually James Wong (The One, Final Destination 1 & 3) would get hired to direct, and while Ben Ramsey wrote the initial drafts (& was credited in the final product) it was Wong who wrote the final draft himself. The finished film, Dragonball Evolution (yes, it's a single word for this film), would finally see release in 2009, first in Japan on March 10 & the United States on April 10... and it was utterly trounced. Ben Ramsey himself has gone off on the film numerous times over the years, it's often lambasted by all anime fans (voice actor Kyle Hebert has even done live roastings of the movie at some anime cons; it's how I first saw the film), and while the commonly stated rumor of Akira Toriyama hating it so much that he conceived of 2013's Battle of Gods in response isn't exactly true (Toei had started pre-production on it without Toriyama's involvement), it is reasonable to assume that Toriyama wanted to be more hands-on with the franchise following Evolution's release, if only to prevent something like it from happening again. Really, the only "good" thing to come from this film was the PSP video game adaptation, which was pretty much just DBZ: Shin Budokai, but with a modified cast; it was actually the first time Bulma was playable in a Dragon Ball fighting game.
Meanwhile, Masami Kurumada had wanted to see a live-action adaptation of Saint Seiya more or less since the manga debuted in 1986. There was an attempt at such a thing sometime in the 90s with StarStorm, which never went beyond a proof-of-concept pitch, but for the longest time the closest thing was a pair of musicals based on Saint Seiya, one in 1991 (starring members of the bands SMAP & Tokio) & another in 2011. That all changed in 2016, when Toei Animation announced a trio of Saint Seiya productions, including an anime adaptation of spin-off manga Saintia Sho (which eventually came out in late 2018), a full-on CG anime reboot series (which debuted in 2019 & is still getting made to this day), & a live-action theatrical adaptation, with Stage 6 Films (a division of Sony Pictures) co-producing the last one. Polish animator/illustrator/director Tomek Bagiński (then best known for his intros to CD Projekt Red's The Witcher series of games) was hired to direct. Befitting this being a (mostly) non-Japanese production, the film was titled Knights of the Zodiac (the name Saint Seiya tends to use abroad), though in Japan it eventually got the final title of Saint Seiya: The Beginning. After some delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film finally came out on April 27, 2023 in Latin America (natch), followed by Japanese & US releases over the next few weeks... and it was utterly trounced, even more so than Dragonball Evolution; DBE earned ~$9.36 million in the US ($56.5 million, worldwide), while KotZ only earned ~$6.986 million (with no reported worldwide box office).
In many ways, Dragon Ball & Saint Seiya have always had a bit of a symbiotic coexistence, even if Toriyama & Kurumada themselves respected each other too highly to ever consider each other "rivals", so to continue celebrating Kurumada's 50th Anniversary &, to some extent, celebrate the legacy of Akira Toriyama, let's compare both of these Jump icons at their (apparent) worst & see which film comes out on top!
Story:
As always, the first thing to compare is each film's general plot concept, and for this category I have to give each of them the benefit of the doubt & treat them as their own unique stories; trust me, we'll compare accuracy at the end. For Dragonball Evolution we have the story of Goku, a teenage high school student who's been trained in martial arts by his Grandpa Gohan. On his 18th birthday Goku's given a Four-Star Dragonball by Gohan as a gift, and on the same day he tries to secretly help out a star classmate of his, Chi Chi, only for her to realize that they both can use ki, so she invites Goku (generally looked at as an ostracized outcast by his fellow students) to a party she's having that night. Goku takes the Dragonball with him as a good luck charm, which works for the best when Gohan is attack by the demonic Piccolo, who had been sealed away 2,000 years ago via the Mafuuba spell (alongside the monster Oozaru) & only recently got released, who's looking for all seven Dragonballs. Goku comes back home to find Gohan near death, who tasks Goku to find all the Dragonballs before the "Bloodmoon Eclipse" happens in a week so as to finally banish Piccolo from the Earth for good, or else it's the end of the world. Along the way Goku befriends Bulma Briefs (a brilliant & adventurous scientist who wants to recover her father's Five-Star "Prometheus Orb", which was stolen by Piccolo's forces), Master Roshi (the man who trained Gohan, & who owns the Two-Star Dragonball), & Yamcha (a rapscallion bandit who the gang convince to help them with promises of a big payday).
As for Knights of the Zodiac, we have the story of Seiya, a young man on the search for his older sister Patricia, who was kidnapped 10 years ago in front his eyes after she hid him away one night. Seiya has found himself at an underground fight pit, where during a fight with a tough guy named Cassios seemingly awakens a power hidden within him. That power, Cosmo, sees him swept away after the fight by Alman Kido, a former business magnate who now works to find warriors who can act as "Knights" of Athena, who he found 18 years ago in the form of her human reincarnation, that of a baby held by a dying Gold Knight who he's raised into a young woman Sienna. Seiya must now choose whether or not he wants to train how to control his Cosmo with the Silver Knight Marin the Eagle & become the Pegasus Knight to protect Sienna, but he only has so much time to decide. Sienna is being hunted after by Vander Guraad, Alman's ex-wife (& Sienna's surrogate mother) who wants to kill Sienna before she fully becomes Athena (as she thinks Athena will destroy the world), & her best warrior, Nero the Phoenix Knight.
Winner: Draw
From a basic, conceptual level both films are honestly very similar. Both are about relatively "normal" guys who find themselves on paths that takes them on journeys that are beyond any reasonable belief, accompanied by people they'd otherwise never would have met. If anything, the main difference between them is that Goku has a more direct path towards his goal of avenging Grandpa Gohan's death, since Piccolo is the one behind it, while Seiya's goal of finding Patricia is obviously sidetracked somewhat by needing to help Alman & Seinna. But, really, neither plot concept is really all that stronger than the other, so we start things off with a tie.
Cast:
Again, we'll get to how things fare in terms of accuracy later, so let's see how the casts for these films are, when taken on their own. When it comes to Dragonball Evolution, it all starts with Justin Chatwin as Goku... and even when you take accuracy out of the picture he was still wildly miscast for this film. Credit to Chatwin for really giving it his all, you can tell that he wanted to give his best throughout, but for a martial arts film he's just not a believable lead character. Watching the film again for this piece I audibly laughed every single time someone called him "Goku", because it was so utterly unbelievable that someone that looks like Chatwin would seriously be called that. It's like when Sean Faris portrayed Kyo Kusanagi in The King of Fighters, which I've covered in the past, but at least that film established that he had a white mother; since DBE actually sticks with Goku being found as a baby by Grandpa Gohan, it's just silly here. Thankfully, the rest of the main cast are all an improvement, and some are even decent, if not even good. Emily Rossum plays Bulma, and she's a fun, confident character that's instantly likable, and while her romance with Yamcha is rather sudden the two do at least look believable together. Speaking of Yamcha, Joon Park (of Korean pop band g.o.d.) doesn't really get a lot to work with here but at least he looks the part of the role he got & has his moments. We also have the venerable Chow Yun-fat as Master Muten Roshi... and it's freakin' Chow Yun-fat, so he's awesome. There's also Jamie Chung as Chi Chi, but she really doesn't have a lot of relevance here, outside of being Goku's love interest, and one (admittedly solid) fight scene with Mai disguised as her. As for the villains, there are literally only two: James Marsters as Lord Piccolo & Eriko [Tamura] (who literally had an entire anime based on her time as an idol on Japan) as Mai. Marsters literally took the role due to him being a fan of Dragon Ball, and while he's fine enough here from a visual perspective he barely does anything of note until the final fight at the end... and even then it isn't much. As for Eriko, while doesn't get to really anything verbally (outside of a handful of lines, a couple of which in Japanese), she at least does have a good visual presence to her, making her the closest thing to a femme fatale the movie can hope to have. Bonus brownie points for sneaking in Ernie Hudson as Sifu Norris, one of Master Roshi's old teachers, though; it won't count for anything, but it was amusing to see.
Knights of the Zodiac, on the other hand, actually has a rather strong start with its lead role, Mackenyu Maeda as Seiya. The son of the late Sonny Chiba, the mononymic young action star is no newcomer to live-action adaptations of manga, having played roles in the likes of Chihayafuru, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable, Tokyo Ghoul, Kaiji, Rurouni Kenshin, Fullmetal Alchemist, & (later that same year as Knights of the Zodiac) Netflix's One Piece; in fact, one of his earliest roles was in the live-action J-Drama adaptation of Team Astro in 2005! In that regard, Mackenyu made a lot of sense to play Seiya here and I think he did a rather good job, honestly. Since this is technically based on the early part of the manga Seiya is a bit of a selfish & impetuous guy who slowly becomes more trusting of Sienna as time goes on, so there is a bit of a character arc to be seen here with him. Madison Iseman plays Sienna/Athena, and while I wasn't exactly a fan of the movie going with the idea that Athena's Cosmo/persona was something that Sienna had to keep under control, due to how seemingly vengeful the goddess herself now was, I think Iseman handled the role decently well here & still managed to make Sienna likable enough. Then there's Sean Bean as Alman Kido, who you have to absolutely take as being like Mitsumasa Kido in (last) name only, as he's actually alive for the majority of the film (&, yes, everybody instantly made jokes about Bean being in yet another movie where his character dies, at some point) & is shown to be a bit of a personable & even amusing guy at points. In place of Saori Kido's personal bodyguard Tatsumi we have Mylock, played Mark Dascascos... and it's Mark Dascascos we're talking about, so he's instantly cool; also, the man just turned 60, yet his voice still sounds like it did when he was in his 20s & early 30s. The role of Marin is played by two people, Caitlin Hutson being the physical actor wearing a mask, while Katie Moy dubs her over in post, and while I get why they went in this direction, & both do fine jobs in their respective roles, I don't get why they couldn't have just brought Hutson in to voice her own lines in post. As for the villains we have Famke Janssen as Guraad (the name being a variant of the Graad Foundation that the Kido Family runs in the manga/anime), who isn't bad at all & her actions throughout do have logic behind them (including her final actions during the climax), while Diego Tinoco plays Nero, who sadly doesn't really get much of anything in terms of character development, but at least seemed to have fun playing a bad guy. Finally, Nick Stahl plays Cassios, who is sort of Seiya's rival throughout the film & winds up becoming the film's equivalent to a Black Saint, but otherwise is almost nothing like his namesake from the manga/anime.
Winner: Knights of the Zodiac
This one's tough, mainly because of one thing: "Missing" Characters. Dragonball Evolution is missing characters like Krillin, Tien, Oolong & Puar (though there are no anthropomorphic characters, in general), the Ox King (Chi Chi references her father once, but it obviously wasn't the same character here), Dr. Briefs (though he's at least referenced by Bulma), or even Yajirobe & Mr. Popo, and while not all of them could obviously have been included it's still weird to see an adaptation of early Dragon Ball (especially the King Piccolo stuff) without them. However... Knights of the Zodiac barely has any characters from Saint Seiya in it, including three of the main characters! Yeah, as you can tell this movie is completely missing Dragon Shiryu, Cygnus Hyoga, & Andromeda Shun, the last of which is Ikki's literal younger brother, and instead we have a strong focus on Mitsumasa Kido's counterpart, right down to his ex-wife being the primary villain, instead of Ikki's counterpart being the main villain, though Seiya vs. Nero is still the climactic final battle.
That being said, though, I would argue that Knights of the Zodiac still has the stronger overall cast, as the actors are overall better fits than the Dragonball Evolution cast (especially Mackenyu vs. Justin Chatwin), and the KotZ villains are actually given more to do & develop with than the ones in DBE. Normally I'd hesitate to award the win to a cast that's missing literal main characters from its source material, but at the same time there's no way I can honestly say that Dragonball Evolution has the better overall cast, so Knights of the Zodiac wins this battle, even if only slightly.
Fight Choreography & Stunts:
Since both of these movies are based on manga known for their fights, I think it's only fair to compare how each film handled their fights & stunt work. When it comes to Dragonball Evolution we have Ryan Watson (The Rundown, Balls of Fury), and one thing to remember is that this movie is, ostensibly, based on the first half of Dragon Ball, which tended to be a bit more focused on (somewhat) more grounded martial arts, with stuff like ki blasts being more of a special ability, than the focus. In that regard, Watson came correct for this film, making sure to keep most of the fights seen here focused primarily on martial arts, or at least physical blows & throws, while the final fight between Goku & Piccolo can go more into the energy blasts that Dragon Ball became more known & renown for. In that regard, Ryan Watson did a fine enough job here from a "martial arts" perspective, as the moments where Goku is being trained by Grandpa Gohan, Master Roshi, & even Chi Chi (well, OK, more like "being motivated by Chi Chi") are actually rather solid & look believable; that being said, though, calling the manipulation of ki, like for a Kamehameha, "airbending" is extremely weird. When it comes to the actual fights & stunt work, though, Dragonball Evolution isn't really anything to write home about. It's simply "OK", though it's at least filmed well, but even for early Dragon Ball's more martial arts-focused style it is definitely underwhelming.
For Knights of the Zodiac we have Andy Cheng, a former member of the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, and the end result here aims to be a bit more akin to what you'd expect from a live-action adaptation of an action manga. There's plenty of "wire-fu" to be found here, with characters performing all manner of high jumps, wild spins, & very theatrical movements. There's also a more than decent amount of moments where you get a slow-motion moment, and while some might understandably feel that the movie overdoes this a bit I think they were paced well enough apart from each other that it didn't come off as egregious. Unlike DBE, though, don't go expecting much in terms of traditional martial arts in KotZ, outside of the occasional scene where Seiya and either Patricia or Marin practice kata with him as part of his training. However, the movie also doesn't try to overdo itself with special effects-laden attacks, either, as while there is the expected Pegasus Meteor Fist, Phoenix Flaming Wings, & even a quick moment where Ikki uses his Phantom Demon Punch (only without the "Punch" part) to be seen in the film, they actually are more or less just saved for the climax. In place of that, we do at least see Seiya perform some more defensive-based evasion "combat" (dissed as "dancing" by his opposition) early on, while someone like Cassios is obviously much more about brute strength getting him through. When KotZ released pretty much the only thing that saw anything resembling a general (positive) consensus was the stunt work & choreography, and while what's in this film isn't exactly groundbreaking or must see, it is still very well done & works as a way to convert Saint Seiya's more (admittedly) loose fighting into something that makes sense in live-action.
Winner: Knights of the Zodiac
Another win for KotZ here, but in this case it's a much more obvious decision. Dragonball Evolution had a solid foundation behind its choreography, but wound up not really doing much with it & it certainly didn't live up to what early Dragon Ball was known for; even Dragon Ball: The Magic Begins nailed that style down much better. In comparison, Knights of the Zodiac understood the assignment, & while its choreography didn't quite go down the insane lengths that even early Saint Seiya was known for it still maintained an element of the bombast & wildness that the manga & anime became popular for.
Musical Score:
Dragonball Evolution was scored by Brian Tyler, who has done the musical score for numerous films & franchises, including various Fast & Furious films, the first three Expendables films, the 2017 Power Rangers film, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, & even Bubba Ho-Tep. The end result here is a very orchestral score performed by the Hollywood Studio Symphony, with some moments of a more rock style peppered in here & there, but honestly one that pretty much leaves your memory the moment the film is over. It's not a bad score by any means, as it does properly accentuate the scenes well & establishes mood when needed, but it just feels "safe", if you will; to be fair, it was well received at the time. Many film composers utilize orchestral scores, so it's imperative that there's at least one song that features a hook, something that will stick in your head after the movie's over, and there's just nothing like that in Tyler's DBE score. This score's "it does the job" quality will naturally seem even worse when compared the Shunsuke Kikuchi's iconic score for both the original Dragon Ball TV anime & Dragon Ball Z, and while I don't think it necessarily needed to do so for this score to be good it is also telling that there isn't even the slightest bit of homage to be heard anywhere in Tyler's music; even a slow, more dramatic rendition of the five iconic notes from "Makafushigi Adventure" would have worked. Also worth noting is that during the end credits we do get an actual Japanese theme song, "Rule" by Ayumi Hamasaki, which is an enjoyable enough song on its own, but really doesn't work that well as a "Dragon Ball" theme song, which have historically been more upbeat & lively, whereas Hamasaki's song is more hard pop rock, with a tinge of techno.
Meanwhile, Knights of the Zodiac went in a very different direction & actually kept some continuity by bringing in Yoshihiro Ike, who had previously done the scores for both 2014's Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary, the standalone CG film made for Kurumada's 40th Anniversary, & the Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya CG reboot series. In that regard, it's no surprise that Ike's score for the movie is a very solid one, heavy in its usage of orchestral sound, similar to that of DBE. However, and I imagine this comes from Ike's experience in anime, Knights of the Zodiac's score is one that almost instantly has a more unique sound to it, with a focus on either a hook that catches your attention or at least a beat that matches the scene in question. Also, much like the King of Fighters live-action movie, it does sometimes result in a slightly weird dichotomy as it can come off like it's trying to be an actual anime but with live-action actors, but for the most part it's a very solid score, in & of itself. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if it wound up sounding similar to Ike's score to the CG reboot series, especially since the two were very closely intertwined during pre-production. Also, while it is slightly subtle, Ike does include a couple of moments where he snuck it bits & pieces of "Pegasus Fantasy" into the score, usually the bridge that leads into the iconic chorus; it's a small detail, but when compared to DBE it's something worth bringing up. Finally, the theme song that plays during the end credits here is "Courage" by P!nk, which is admittedly a very good song & does fit Saint Seiya to some extent; after all, Legend of Sanctuary also had a heavy hitting, full English ending theme in "Hero". It is amusing that the movie with a score that feels little fitting with its source material had an actual Japanese theme songs, while the movie with a score that actually feels fitting had an American theme song.
Winner: Knights of the Zodiac
OK, this is starting to get a little ridiculous, but this is down to my own personal opinion, and I am trying to show no bias towards Saint Seiya. I certainly don't think Brian Tyler's score for Dragonball Evolution is a bad one, it was very well received back in the day, but at the same time it just sounds orchestral for the hell of it, with little to nothing that really made me pay attention, outside of Ayumi Hamasaki's ED that absolutely did not feel at all like a Dragon Ball theme song. In comparison, Yoshihiro Ike's score for Knights of the Zodiac, while certainly not one of his best scores in his career, fit the movie well & kept some identity that it was made for a Saint Seiya movie, and that's not even counting the homage to the anime's iconic OP theme that was included.
Uhhhh, maybe I should start instituting a mercy rule?
Execution:
So now we get to, easily, the most important battle when it comes to each film as their own work: How well (or poorly) do they work as films? As for my own personal experience with James Wong's work, I will fully state that I absolutely adore The One, which is so utterly early 00s in its entire execution & is such a joy to watch because of that. However, even when you ignore its existence as an adaptation of a manga/anime, Dragonball Evolution is merely "just OK", at absolute best. Likely due in part to its run time of only 85 minutes this film goes by at a constant pace, which is both good & bad. It's good in that it never really becomes boring & it does help give a sense of urgency to an extent, to match the time limit given in the plot. However, it's also bad because there's barely any time given for the plot & characters to really breathe. Goku & Chi Chi being high school students is just completely dropped once Grandpa Gohan is killed off, making its entire inclusion essentially pointless, while Bulma & Yamcha go from not really liking each other to being attracted to each other within literally around 10 minutes or so. Piccolo barely gets any time at all to establish anything about him, including how he even was freed from the Mafuuba seal, and Mai is just there without any sort of explanation as to why she's Piccolo's right-hand woman. As mentioned, the martial arts choreography is OK, but when you get to the final battle, & especially the final Kamehameha against Piccolo, the film suffers the most. Justin Chatwin just looks ridiculous during the requisite "scream to power up" sequence (which is really more of a DBZ thing, not DB, but whatever), and even the actual Kamehameha itself is awkward, as Goku jumps at Piccolo while firing it, instead of standing his ground like he should. There are other things I could nitpick, but when it comes down to it I can say that, while it's certainly not the worst action film out there, Dragonball Evolution (even when taken as its own thing) is just underwhelming; even Chow Yun-fat gloriously chewing the scenery can only do so much.
In comparison, Tomek Bagiński had previously only directed stuff like short films & animated projects, while also doing the occasional producing work, before being hired to direct Knights of the Zodiac. In that regard, Bagiński's feature-length theatrical debut is a solid effort. Similar to DBE you kind of have to ignore the idea of KotZ being an "adaptation" of Saint Seiya, and to be fair even the credits state that it's only "based on" the story & characters of Saint Seiya, and when taken as its own thing, a reimagining at best, it's an enjoyable enough watch. Like some I am a bit annoyed that movies nowadays seemingly have to always be two+ hours long, at a minimum, but at least KotZ take advantage of that time to flesh things out enough when it comes to character development. Seiya does go from someone who doesn't care about anything but finding his sister to wanting to protect Sienna from harm in a way that feels believable, and Sienna's dilemma of having a literal goddess' Cosmo inside her that she feels she has to keep at bay is definitely a bit out there from a purely relatable perspective but one that makes sense within the world the film takes place in. That being said, as I mentioned before, it still is really weird that a Saint Seiya film has the primary conflict technically be between Kido & his ex-wife, but at least the film take advantage of that by making Alman Kido a much better man than his manga/anime counterpart (Alman didn't father 100 orphans before coming across baby Athena, so that's a positive), while Guraad's inner humanity is slowly expanded on throughout the film, resulting in a climax that makes sense for her. It's interesting that Guraad is a woman & Alman's ex-wife in this movie, whereas in the CG reboot series Guraad is a man & not related to Alman as directly, and apparently this came about because of how poorly received the male Guraad was by fans back in 2019, so the movie seemingly got re-written to change Guraad into someone completely different (the benefit of the development hell it was stuck in for a few years, I guess), and if so I'd call it a successful change. Is Knights of the Zodiac a great film? No, not really, but I do at least respect it for seemingly trying its best.
Winner: Knights of the Zodiac
Again, I didn't come out of watching Knights of the Zodiac absolutely loving it, but I certainly didn't hate it & I did get the feeling that the people who directed, wrote, filmed, & produced it did at least care about the end product, to some degree, even if it wasn't exactly fully "accurate" to Saint Seiya... and I certainly can't say the same about Dragonball Evolution. Sure, people like James Wong, Ben Ramsey, & the cast certainly tried their best, but DBE was produced by companies that simply wanted to take advantage of a popular IP in an effort to make money. In comparison, Tomek Bagiński, the trio of writers who made the final script, & the cast of Knights of the Zodiac felt like they really did want to make the best possible product they could, and since this was produced directly by Toei Animation (likely learning from the mistakes made with DBE) that meant that maintaining some element of Saint Seiya, even if only in feel, was made important. Neither film is outstanding, admittedly, but one of them is still superior than the other.
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| An expectation as to how "accurate" these films will be. |
Accuracy:
Finally, since these are both adaptations, we have to go for the jugular & compare just how accurate each film is to their respective manga sources. So first up we have Dragonball Evolution... and, woo boy, where do we even start?! Simply put, this is barely a Dragon Ball movie at all, as 99% of what is accurate to the original manga or anime is only so on the most basic of levels. In terms of characters, I'll give Bulma, Yamcha, & Roshi the most credit as while they still have their inaccuracies I can at least look at who they are in this film & go "OK, I can at least sort of see their characters", with Roshi being the closest due to his upbeat & cocky nature, wearing of Hawaiian shirts, & a couple moments of perversion. Meanwhile, Goku... isn't really Goku at all, outside of a couple moments where he's shown to have some minor super strength or eats a large piece of meat off of the bone, with the latter really just feeling like a last minute addition after a poor test screening. In fact, Goku in this movie is arguably more his son, Gohan, since Son Gohan's the character in the manga & anime who has the awkward high school life & falls in love with a classmate who's also secretly a fighter. There's even a scene early on where Goku "fights" bullies by simply avoiding their attacks & letting them hit each other, because Goku promised to not fight people, and that's 100% something teenage Gohan would have done, because Chi Chi would absolutely tell her son not to get into fights!
For as many little details that the film does get right, like Grandpa Gohan giving Goku the Four-Star Dragon Ball, Bulma working for Capsule Corporation (& even keeping her last name, though a deleted scene naturally had to poke fun at it), the Mafuuba, & even a reference to Piccolo being a Namekian (though it's way too early to make that reference), there are even more details that are just off, many of which needlessly so. Mai works for Piccolo instead of the Red Ribbon Army (which doesn't even exist in this film), the cities are named after non-city locations instead of cardinal directions, Master Roshi's house is in the middle of a giant crater instead of being on a small island, Goku turns into Oozaru during the climax when he can't see the Moon due to the eclipse (& I'm not even bringing up the lack of a tail), etc., etc. Sure, changes had to be made to work within the film's limitations, but when so many of these changes either didn't need to be done (why "Paozu City" instead of, say, "Central City"?) or could have actually helped with the storytelling (couldn't they have just explained that the Red Ribbon Army unsealed Piccolo, hence why Mai is working with him?) it's easy to see why Ben Ramsey has been so harsh on the final product, which he had his name put to despite not writing the final product.
As for Knights of the Zodiac, this is an admittedly tough one to do, simply because the movie isn't really trying to be a direct adaptation of the manga, though it's at least more recognizable as a Saint Seiya movie than DBE is to Dragon Ball. On the most basic level, KotZ is "based" mainly on the early part of the manga, specifically the stuff with Ikki & the Black Saints. However, there are some elements of other parts sprinkled throughout, like Seiya training with Marin from Chapter 1 or Aiolos trying to escape Sanctuary with baby Athena, while Shura is coming after him, from way later in the manga (which is actually how the film opens). We also do get some moments where some manga plot points are brought up in smaller ways, like Alman & Guraad bringing up the children they "left behind" (a reference to the 100 orphans that Mitsumasa Kido fathered & would later send off to become Bronze Saints) or a very subtle indication of the "Is Marin really Seiya's sister?" subplot when Seiya visibly notices that Marin is training him in ways similar to how Patricia trained him as a kid; it's a very quick moment, but it's there. Even with the name changes we can also see which characters everyone is supposed to be, like Sienna being Saori (there's even a joke at the end referencing DiC's old adaptation calling her a "Princess", which was deserved), Alman being Mitsumasa, Mylock being Tatsumi (except that he can actually fight back), Patricia being Seika, & Nero being Ikki. In the inverse, Cassios in this film isn't much at all like his manga/anime counterpart at all, but at least he's a counterpart for the Black Saints.
That being said, though, Knights of the Zodiac isn't really all that "accurate" to Saint Seiya, similar to Dragonball Evolution & Dragon Ball. However, and this is key, KotZ still feels like Saint Seiya on some basic level, which wasn't the case for DBE. There's a grandiosity to it from the start that befits the scale the manga tends to stick with, Mackenyu still looks like Seiya for the entirety of the film (admittedly, a red shirt & jeans isn't a tough casual wear to match), the Phoenix Armor actually looks remarkably like it does in the manga (the Pegasus Armor a little less so, but still looks good), and while the storyline told here isn't really all that accurate to the Black Saints part of the storyline (outside of small details, like Nero/Ikki still wanting the Gold Armor/Cloth in the long run) it doesn't feel so absolutely unlike the source material, like DBE does. Hell, while there isn't anyone falling on their head (i.e. the "Kurumada Fall") there is at least one moment with an honest-to-Zeus "Kurumada Launch", which is very commendable & shows that there was a concerted effort to at least keep the spirit of Saint Seiya alive in this film.
Yeah, there's pretty much no blood to be seen at all in either film, but I'd say that's more a sign of how Hollywood has softened the ratings system so much over the decades than anything about either film, specifically.
Winner: Does It Really Matter, At This Point?!?!
I honestly don't know whether to just give this to Knights of the Zodiac (because it at least felt like its source material, to some extent), to pull what I did with my Hong Kong '97 vs. Hong Kong 97 piece from two years ago & award no points (since neither is really all that accurate), or to repeat my Zzyzx vs. Zyzzyx Road piece from last year & actually deduct a point from Dragonball Evolution (because it's honestly almost the exact opposite of "accurate"); I do a lot of Vs. Battles for April Fools' Day, don't it? Simply put, at this point the battle has been an absolute one-sided slaughter, so much so that I feel kind of sorry for DBE, because aside from the basic plot concept it's been nothing but KotZ the whole way through. To remove a point from DBE would result in it literally having 0 points (better than negative, at least), so in the end I'll pull what I did with the very first Vs. Battle I ever did (Ehrgeiz vs. Ehrgeiz in 2013) & leave the final category up to you, the reader, to decide.
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| They seriously added a "Z" to Dragonball Evolution's home video release cover . That'd be so hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic. |
Well, uhh... this is awkward. I went into this Vs. Battle thinking that things would maybe be a fair bit more even, with it likely coming out more akin to a "Here are two absolutely terrible & highly inaccurate live-action adaptations of manga/anime, so let's farcically see which one's 'better!" scenario. Instead, we ended up with the most lopsided end result in the history of the various Vs. Battles seen on this blog, as Knights of the Zodiac is, indisputably, the better film than Dragonball Evolution. It doesn't matter if the final score is 1-6, 1-5, or an outright clean sweep because DBE lost the one point it had, I don't think anybody can earnestly say that Dragonball Evolution is a better film than Knights of the Zodiac, though I can certainly see why one would hate both equally, and I think it really does show that Toei Animation truly learned a lesson from that first movie. Simply put, DBE was nothing more than a licensing deal made by Shueisha, one that Toei seemingly had nothing to do with, and while 20th Century Fox claimed to have Akira Toriyama on board as an executive producer it was really nothing more than window dressing, as just about no one in Japan could do anything to make that movie work as a proper Dragon Ball film, even in the slightest. With that now in the past, Toei made sure to be more directly involved with KotZ, so much so that it literally owns the film itself (just look at the copyrights down below), and while I wouldn't call Saint Seiya's live-action adaptation a "great" film, I was honestly surprised how it was just better than Dragon Ball's on pretty much every level. I was all ready to just laugh at both, only to wind up feeling some sympathy for Dragonball Evolution, because it just never had a chance to win with Vs. Battle, to start with.
However, this is NOT how I want to celebrate the life & legacy of Akira Toriyama! Therefore, check back later this month for a new entry of Oh Me, Oh My, OVA! as we properly pay our respects to the late, great mangaka by checking out four straight-to-video anime productions he either worked on or were based on his works... and only three of them are Dragon Ball related, even!
Dragonball Evolution © 2009 Twentieth Century Studios & Dune Entertainment III, LLC
Knights of the Zodiac © 2023 Toei Animation
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