Dragon Ball Z: Wrath of the Dragon (1995)

Wonderful character development!

That was an excellent one.

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

I enjoy the DBZ movies, but they usually all have the same flaw...they all could have used about 10 to fifteen minutes of plot development and about five more minutes of battle time. This one is no exception to the rule. Overall I enjoyed, but I thought it could use just a bit more. Here it is nice to see they take a differing approach with the evil foe as this monster is rather large and is not the usually just smaller or just bigger than Goku villain. This monster is about Godzilla size. They also introduce a new hero character as well and he is the main focus for the story part of the movie, the time before the ultimate ending battle. The plot has him and Trunks sort of becoming friends. Of course, this also has the part of the story where our plot is established and it is rather interesting, just needed a bit more to it. Then the last bit of the movie is a rather cool battle featuring many of the DBZ warriors including Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, Goten and Trunks. The battle is rather nifty as the DBZ warriors get knocked around a bit by the behemoth foe. So on the whole it is a good movie just needed about 20 more minutes of play time to it.

Beware of Spoilers!This is a review for the recently released Funimation version. Although the Japanese version is very good. I had to say "wow" when I finished watching it. It has such a great story, and is much more deep than the other movie stories. I was amazed that it was packed into 55 minutes. There are so many great qualities about this final Dbz movie. Great story, Great animation, some character development. The story is thus, Two warriors, Tapion and his young brother, Minosha, destroyed a beast named Hildegarn(Hirudegarn in English version)1000 years ago with magic whistles and contained the whistles along with their bodies inside Music boxes so he could never be released again, and freed their planet from destruction. Hoy, the strange alien who used his powers to bring Hirudegarn to life comes to earth to find a warrior who can open his music box(which contains Tapion) so he can release Hirudegarn again to do his bidding. He acts as if he is innocent, and the z-warriors use the dragonballs to open the box. Later on, Hoy finally manages to release Hirudegarn(I won't tell how) and the Z-warriors come to the scene. Also, the movie tells the story of how Trunk's got his sword, which I think is very cool. Overall, the story is very complex, I had to watch it twice to fully understand it. The final battle sequence is fast, thrilling, and action packed and very satisfying. We get to see most of the Z-warriors fight but Piccolo does not return for this final Dbz film, which sucks. We get to see some Fusion, and SS3. One thing that sucks is Funimation changed some major names like "Dragon Fist" which is changed to "Dragon Fire" which is stupid and pointless. Also there is crappy Gt music in it which does not make it anymore exiting in the battle sequences. Funimation doesn't use bands for the music anymore but they could have used the music similar to what they used in Fusion Reborn. Which was fast paced metal which was pretty awesome. I wouldn't say this is the best Dbz movie though, which a lot of people say, I think The History of Trunks is the best Dbz movie. To conclude, This Dbz film is great in Dub and Japanese and is a great conclusion to the Dbz movies.

Well lets start with the basics. The real title of this movie is "The Explosive Dragon Fist". It's about Hildegarn, who by the way isn't a dragon...(I'm getting all this info from the Japanese movie with English subtitles) Anyway the move gives no real hints as to its chronology within the dragon ball z story line other than the fact that Gohan is already doing the whole Great Saiyaman thing so its probably after movie 12. (duh) I'm too lazy to explain the entire story from beginning to end but heres the readers digest version: On a far away planet called Konats in a far away galaxy thats really far away, some idiots practicing black magic wished for their big ugly evil idol to be brought to life (aka a mix between Pinocchio and Godzilla). Anyway the beast they brought to life was called Hildegarn. Hes unstoppable about a day, when two kids use their magic flutes to weaken him (wow they pick up weaknesses fast on that planet). Then they use magic swords to cut him in half (wow some fast blacksmiths on this planet too). Somehow the flutes trap the two halves (head to waist/waist down) inside their bodies. Then finally the enders get involved and decide that the two brothers who saved the planet should be locked in music boxes and sent to the two ends of the universe. (gee interesting way of showing gratitude). Moving on, the two brothers (Tapion and Minoshiyal) are sent to the far ends of the galaxy. About 1,000 years later, one of the dudes that brought the beast to life, who had been traveling from planet to planet looking for the brothers, found the younger brother and killed him. (minoshiyal, cuz who wants to base a story around a person with a name that hard to pronounce) Thus the lower half of Hildegarn was released. (legs and tail) Later the evil guy finds Tapions music box and goes to earth, where he tricks Gohan into using the dragon balls to free Tapion, who has a hard time keeping the upper half under control. (If he falls asleep, it escapes and tries to kill him) But freeing Tapion meant the super special music box which kept Tapion locked away was destroyed. So to help him, Bulma tries to construct a new one but it doesn't work. Tapion, thinking it's OK to sleep, falls asleep and the upper half of Hildegard unites with the lower half and the full Hildegard wreaks havoc on the town. The Z-squad tried and fails to beat it, then Goten and Trunks fuse and goof around, then after being yelled at by Picollo, they attack Hildegarn and it seems like they've won. But (dun dun dun) Hildegard sheds his ugly skin like a beetle and becomes even uglier than before (if thats possible). The only difference is that now, he has wings. Yay. So anyway he kills more stuff and at the last minute when all hope seems lost Goku goes Super Saiyan 3 and says some cheesy line before doing this awesome punch (evidently a dragon fist) where he flies up in the air and the dragon that comes out when someone summons the uses the dragon balls (the ones on earth) appears in gleaming gold like Goku's hair, and flies right through Hildegarn's torso, leaving a giant hole the size of the Roman Colosseum, which obviously kills him. So yea, yay, Goku won as if you had any doubts. I know it was a bit long but it's a complicated story. There are a lot of other details i left out so you wouldn't be reading an article the size of a harry potter book, but when the movie comes out, it'll just be more interested to watch.

In a nutshell, it is the best of the best. The story is to me, the best. The musical score is fantastic. And the fight scenes, I would want to just rewind everyone of those to watch the glory of fighting. My favorite part of the movie is the connection between Trunks and Tapion, they act like they are brothers. My favorite fight scene in the movie is when Gohan fights the "half monster" (I say "half" because Gohan only fights it's legs, strange, I know). It most likely won't be out in English until about mid-late 2005, but at being one of the longest of them and possibly the best of them, it is absolutely worth the wait. For an anime or action movie, its great. For a DBZ movie, it is perfect.