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James Wong Talks Dragonball!

craigdbfan

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Newsarama's interview with James Wong

I'll post a couple of excerpts:

“At one point, Stephen Chow was going to direct the movie and somehow that didn’t work out,” recalls Wong. “20th Century Fox called me and asked if I was interested in looking at a script. I wasn’t a lifelong fan of Dragonball because I didn’t know much about it. I said I would look at it and the script they sent me was interesting, but it was really when they sent me the manga from the Toriyama that it intrigued me. I thought the manga was fun, inventive, and amazing.”

Gee I wonder why Fox booted Stephen Chow from the project?

Oh I know maybe once he realized that he was going to be stripped of any creative control and was going to have to adhere to the Ben Ramsey script he called it quits.

So what does Fox do you ask? They bring in someone completely unaware of the franchise who they have more control over.

When we talked about this movie, certainly Dragonball has its own style, but it was important to have a sense of fun and incorporate different fighting techniques. However, we also wanted to incorporate some dance or hip hop moves.

:down

Heres the rest of the interview where James Wong pretty much proves why he was the wrong choice to begin with to direct this film.

Source
 
Justin barely fights and was delivering his lines so horribly.
 
This clip from "Kung Fu Hustle" directed by Stephen Chow (he also stars) is way better than any fight scene shown in DB:E. Thanks to Solar Tiger for the video. Keep in mind that Kung Fu Hustle only cost 20 million to make in comparison to 45 million dollars that went into DB:E. So there is simply no excuse for the fights being so pathetically sloppy and bad in DB:E.

Kung Fu Hustle fight scene

[YT]glsUlacDN7Q&eurl[/YT]

I'm sure if Chow would have been given full creative control he would have made a far better movie.
 
That explains the entire movie. He wasn't a fan and wanted to incorporate dance and hip hop moves? What the ****? :huh:
 
That explains the entire movie. He wasn't a fan and wanted to incorporate dance and hip hop moves? What the ****? :huh:
Read the actual interview.

“As soon as we cast anybody, we sent them into training,” reports Wong. “Jonathan and his gang worked on lots of stuff including X-Men, and a bunch of Bourne Identity and Supremacy stuff. When we talked about this movie, certainly Dragonball has its own style, but it was important to have a sense of fun and incorporate different fighting techniques. However, we also wanted to incorporate some dance or hip hop moves. It’s not to make it dance-like, but to add a little fun into the fight. There’s a part where Goku is avoiding the bullies at a party and he actually slides on his head. That’s more of a hip hop move so it’s a mixture of stuff with the criteria for it being fun
 
^^woa....big difference even when not semi-misquoted...It still sounds very stupid
 
Last edited:
Read the actual interview.

“As soon as we cast anybody, we sent them into training,” reports Wong. “Jonathan and his gang worked on lots of stuff including X-Men, and a bunch of Bourne Identity and Supremacy stuff. When we talked about this movie, certainly Dragonball has its own style, but it was important to have a sense of fun and incorporate different fighting techniques. However, we also wanted to incorporate some dance or hip hop moves. It’s not to make it dance-like, but to add a little fun into the fight. There’s a part where Goku is avoiding the bullies at a party and he actually slides on his head. That’s more of a hip hop move so it’s a mixture of stuff with the criteria for it being fun

I read it slick, so there's no need to copy and paste it. It's still ******ed either way.
 
Read the actual interview.

“As soon as we cast anybody, we sent them into training,” reports Wong. “Jonathan and his gang worked on lots of stuff including X-Men, and a bunch of Bourne Identity and Supremacy stuff. When we talked about this movie, certainly Dragonball has its own style, but it was important to have a sense of fun and incorporate different fighting techniques. However, we also wanted to incorporate some dance or hip hop moves. It’s not to make it dance-like, but to add a little fun into the fight. There’s a part where Goku is avoiding the bullies at a party and he actually slides on his head. That’s more of a hip hop move so it’s a mixture of stuff with the criteria for it being fun
It always seems your the first to jump at anyone with something negative to say about this film.
 
I'm not surprised Wong is a not a fan. I agree about the Kung Fu Hustle clip and that was the only reason I was excited for this film. I didn't like a lot of the stuff I was seeing but I figured the action and humor would make up for it because Chow was producer. No such luck. I really wonder how much Chow was involved with this film. After seeing the film I really lose a lot of faith in him.
 
I'm not surprised Wong is a not a fan. I agree about the Kung Fu Hustle clip and that was the only reason I was excited for this film. I didn't like a lot of the stuff I was seeing but I figured the action and humor would make up for it because Chow was producer. No such luck. I really wonder how much Chow was involved with this film. After seeing the film I really lose a lot of faith in him.
Chow wasn't involved.

According to "Apple Daily", Hollywood live action movie "Dragonball Evolution" has already entered countdown for release. The movie had been anticipated by Asian moviegoers because it was based on a Japanese manga, produced by Stephen Chow, and starred by Chow Yun-Fat. However during the promotion in Taiwan and Korea no sign of Stephen Chow the producer was seen, only Yun-Fat was there to manage the scene. Some sources state that Stephen had repeatedly suggested revising the script, but they were all ignored, making him feel looked down upon and so refused to attend any promotion activities in protest.

The Fox sponsored, Stephen Chow produced, James Wong directed, Chow Yun-Fat and Justin Chatwin starred manga live action movie "Dragonball" will start screening next month, and Yun-Fat has already began his Asian promotion tour, but no sign of Stephen the producer was seen. Some US sources state that when the film began shooting, Stephen already had conflicts with the filmakers, so he was very unhappy with them.


Stephen is producer only in name and has no actually power, so he refused to do promotion

It was said that after Fox bought the rights to the Japanese manga "Dragonball", they had invited Stephen to be director, but he was busy with filming CJ7, so he only agreed to be producer, and Fox turned to James Wong to direct. At the start of filming, Stephen was really ethusiastic at the thought of cooperating with Yun-Fat, seen especially in his numerous suggestions to casting, scripting, make design and special effects during the planning. But these suggestions were all rejected by Fox executives, causing Stephen who enjoyed high prestige in the Hong Kong cinema industry to lose face. Since his first job as a Hollywood producer was only in name but has no actually power in decisions, Stephen decided no to attend any of the promotional activities for the movie in protest.


Stephen admitted that his suggestions had not been accepted, and did not have an actual role

A reported phoned Stephen to confirm, and he replied: "I am not able to attend the promotional activities because of the timing, and that promotion is not my job, so I already have other work scheduled". Regarding the rumours of him being producer without actual decision powers, Stephen said: "A movie has many types of producer, and I was the kind of advisory type of producer. Except for giving a few suggestions, I did not have an actual role". When asked if his suggestions were not accepted, he replied: "It's true they did not accept my decisions. Maybe they thought those weren't suitable, so they didn't use them. They have their own reasons for not accepting, but I won't mind, since it's the movie company who makes the decisions". When the matter of "Dragonball" author Toriyama Akira being dissatisfied that the movie isn't true to the original story, Stephen said: "Sorry, no comment".

http://ent.sina.com.cn/m/f/2009-02-19/23122383039.shtml-not translated.
 
Well I'm really glad he didn't have anything to do with this film. And it explains why this movie was so bad even with Chow as a producer. They probably used Chow's name simply to get fans like me interested.

Still, it's kind of depressing. Chow would have made a way better film then Wong and Fox. For some reason Fox doesn't really like to listen people who have talent, skill, or interest in making a good film.
 
Well I'm really glad he didn't have anything to do with this film. And it explains why this movie was so bad even with Chow as a producer. They probably used Chow's name simply to get fans like me interested.

Still, it's kind of depressing. Chow would have made a way better film then Wong and Fox. For some reason Fox doesn't really like to listen people who have talent, skill, or interest in making a good film.

Its almost as if they intentionally want to accomplish failure. Rothman seriously needs to go. He is the one that started implementing these stupid intrusive ways of dealing with directors and writers.

"Under Rothman's watch, Twentieth Century Fox has met criticism for having their blockbuster films (e.g. the Fantastic Four and X-Men films) run under two hours in order to fit in more theater showings and for, under his tenure, greenlighting less cerebral films in favor of films with more commercial appeal."
 
Casting really spread their net to find the perfect actor to embody the heroic lead character and they were ultimately wowed by Canadian Justin Chatwin.

“For the part of Goku, we looked all over the world,” says Wong. “We read lots of people from different ethnic backgrounds. In the Dragonball manga, the world was representational of ours, but what was interesting was culturally, there was no sense of one place. I thought it would be cool to have a movie where race didn’t really matter and there was a feeling of a multi cultural world. The most important thing about Goku was his genuineness, a sort of openness he has, and a feeling he is without guile. When Justin came in, you got a sense that no matter what, this was a really good person. There’s an innocence about him no matter what he’s talking about or how he’s behaving.”

And that's why I would have picked Samuel Jackson to play Goku. Plus he's a bigger star than Chatwin.
 
i refused to believe they looked all over the world and came up with A Real World cast member A Korean pop star two random throw away white hollywood actors James Masters and Chow Yun Fat and Ernie Hudson.
 
that interview is VERY telling.

James Wong said:
At one point, Stephen Chow was going to direct the movie and somehow that didn’t work out.
i don't want to sound big headed but that basically confirms what i've been thinking. Stephen probably wanted to direct Dragon Ball and make it faithful (heavily rooted in Asian culture) but Fox, being the ultra Conservative/American company they are, probably didn't like Chow's approach and wanted to make the movie geared more towards Americans. so i'm guessing that Chow took a backseat as producer because of creative differences.

this really pisses me off because Stephen Chow was CLEARLY the right man to direct a Dragon Ball movie and Fox basically pissed away the best opportunity to create something spectacular just because they wanted to make it more American.

F**K YOU FOX!!!

20th Century Fox called me and asked if I was interested in looking at a script. I wasn’t a lifelong fan of Dragonball because I didn’t know much about it.
gee...between making Goku an emo wuss that's really only concerned with getting teh pu$$y and having Oozaru be Piccolo's 2,000 year old pet monkey, i wouldn't have guessed that at all!!!

The most important thing about Goku was his genuineness, a sort of openness he has, and a feeling he is without guile. When Justin came in, you got a sense that no matter what, this was a really good person. There’s an innocence about him no matter what he’s talking about or how he’s behaving.
yeah............Wong, you're a moron. shame on you for not realizing that you were the WONG man for the job in the first place and go f*** yourself for doing this to Dragon Ball. take your fat paycheck and never make another movie again please.
 
Stephen Chow directing DB? I don't think so, he stated so many times that he only directs movies created by himself, that's why he refused to direct the new Green Hornet movie.

So I think this was not Fox choice, maybe he rejected it first.
 
Stephen Chow directing DB? I don't think so, he stated so many times that he only directs movies created by himself, that's why he refused to direct the new Green Hornet movie.
you take everything at face value? i'm sure that's just his excuse for ultimately not directing Dragon Ball. he was attached to direct the Green Hornet AFTER he made that statement about doing movies created by himself and he's currently working on adapting "A Journey to the West" (the novel that DB was based on) for the big screen.

So I think this was not Fox choice, maybe he rejected it first.
i genuinely think that Chow wanted to direct Dragon Ball but Fox wanted him to change too much stuff so he stepped down.
 
it could also be that FOX would let him direct but with a script from them .it could be that when Chow saw the script,the feel of the movie he puked.
 
I would have loved if Stephen Chow directed this movie!!!
 
i would too...under the condition that there would be minimum interference and NO creative decisions from the execs.
 
i would too...under the condition that there would be minimum interference and NO creative decisions from the execs.

Sadly this won't happen anytime soon under Fox's watch. I believe they become squeamish at the thought of allowing a director full creative control.

Even if the director somehow manages to make a good movie Fox will end up butchering it by cutting it down to 90 minutes and then poorly sell the film with lazy marketing.
 
true....the only director Fox would give that kind of respect to is Cameron, and that's only because they know he'll bring in the dough. if he were JUST a genius director (and not a money magnet) i'm sure Fox would be giving him hell right now.
 
true....the only director Fox would give that kind of respect to is Cameron, and that's only because they know he'll bring in the dough. if he were JUST a genius director (and not a money magnet) i'm sure Fox would be giving him hell right now.

Yup, pretty much. The other director I can think off getting full control was Lucas (but again as you mentioned they only gave him control because of the colossal earnings of the original SW films).
 

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