10 Terrible Live Action Anime Adaptations
4. Dragonball: Evolution
Dragonball: Evolution took a beloved series, ditched a lot of the thing fans loved about it and turned it into a tone-deaf Americanised mess. There’s so much wrong with the movie adaptation it’s hard to focus on just one thing, but we have to try.
It turned the vibrant world of the anime into something that looked like a cheap TV pilot, the magical powers are realised with shoddy CGI effects, the storyline makes no sense and despite the best efforts of the cast none of the characters are worth connecting with. It even wastes the talents of Chow Yun-fat, which is the biggest sin of all.
The creator of Dragon Ball publicly disowned the movie and screenwriter Ben Ramsey eventually apologised, confessing he wasn’t a fan of the series and took it because it was a nice payday. It’s a fair guess that money was the motivating factor for most of the crew too, and the stink surrounding it haunts the series to this day.