Sunday, May 22, 2022

Dragonball Movie 2 - Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle (1987)

 

Is that Danhausen in the background?

Hopefully this movie has more reason to exist than the first one did. While the first one ran alongside (and retold) the beginning of the show, this one runs alongside the arc where Gokou and Kuririn start training with Master Roshi. It's sort of a retelling but also takes things off in a different direction. I don't understand these retellings. At least by DBZ they'd start getting it right by having the movies tell completely different stories alongside certain eras of the show, without stressing over the continuity of it all. That still has issues, but at least it isn't redundant.

We begin with the story of the Sleeping Princess, a woman of great beauty who is perpetually asleep in the castle of some vampire.

Gokou is trying to get Roshi to train him, but Roshi is more interested in watching Exercise Videos For Ladies. He can't get enough of those 80's gym socks!

Trouble appears on the horizon, as Kuririn sails in on his boat. He also seeks the tutelage of Roshi!

This is his first meeting with Gokou or Roshi, and he immediately faceplants getting out of his boat. SO FAR, SO GOOD.

Roshi says he can only take one student at a time...until Kuririn bribes him.

Gokou is happy to have a training buddy, while Kuririn wants Gokou outta here.

Long story short, Roshi tasks them with finding the Sleeping Princess and seeing if the legend is true. If they rescue her from the castle and bring her back to him, he'll train them.

Our heroes set out, crossing perilous terrain because they can't fly yet.

Kuririn proceeds to CUT THE ROPE BRIDGE WITH GOKOU ON IT.

Gokou falls to his death and the end credits roll.

Seriously, why don't we ever hear about the time Kuririn TRIED TO MURDER GOKOU?

Kuririn then hitches a leisurely ride on a herd of bison, now that he's in less of a hurry to reach the castle. You gotta GRAB YOUR COMPETITION BY THE THROAT.

Elsewhere, Bulma and Friends drop in on Roshi, who was doing Roshi things. I mean, not doing them. He wasn't doing anything!

Hey, Yamcha has a haircut and now looks like a decent lad. Roshi immediately asks Bulma if he can feel her titties for old time's sake.



Elsewhere, Gokou reappears and helps Kuririn up from a cliff he was struggling with, showing what a good lad Gokou actually is. A 500 foot fall won't kill him but it probably hurt like hell, and here he is showing no bitterness about it.

Now that Kuririn and Gokou are on the same page, they arrive at the Devil's Castle. This place is mad creepy. Considering that the movie is already deviating from the show, this movie feels like it has a lot more reason to exist than the first one.

Bulma and Friends, who are looking for Gokou, set out for the Devil's Castle as well. They immediately get attacked by flying gargoyles, who kidnap Bulma.

Meanwhile, her USELESS BOYFRIEND just screams a lot as their helicopter crashes.

Gokou and Kuririn explore Devil's Castle, which looks like something out of the lategame of an NES Ninja Gaiden game.

We see the back of a lady-knee. I didn't know the Devil's Castle was also SEXY?

Speaking of sexy, Bulma awakens in a posh bedroom, now a prisoner of Devil's Castle.

Though, from the looks of things, an honored prisoner. Perhaps the owner of the castle wants to add her to his menagerie of sleeping women?

My God...Bill Cosby? IS THE 'COZ THE OWNER OF THE CASTLE?

"This terrible line was brought to you by 2018."

Bulma turns around to meet... Igor?? "It's eye-gor" he probably says.

"I see you've met Igor" bellows the host of the house. Wait, the guy's name is actually Igor? I was making that up!

In any case, this is Lucifer, the vampire lord of Devil's Castle.

Bulma is insta-smitten. Isn't she with Yamcha? What kind of sex drive does this woman have? A Super-Saiyan sized one?

Lucifer has one main goon, and it's this Dragon Quest refugee. He's also got a lot of minor fodder troops.

Gokou battles the big guy while Kuririn deals with the fodder.

The Power Pole is basically Gokou's finishing move at this point in the series. However, Big Red here is strong enough to survive it! Ultimately he ends up falling into... a giant pirahna plant. I don't wanna talk about it.

Kuririn mops up the fodder troops!

Elsewhere, Bulma is led to the Sleeping Princess room, where they're going to draw her blood and drink it to celebrate the occasion of The Awakening.

I didn't know this movie was a Toad biopic.

Gokou saves Kuririn from falling into a pit. This is after Kuririn took off on him again to try and find the Sleeping Princess first. Gokou keeps forgiving Kuririn for his trickery and it's heartwarming to see. Also very naive and would get him killed a few times over if he weren't almost-unkillable.

This leads to them finding the Sleeping Princess...and it's actually a crystal!

Wait...NOT a wimmin?

Speaking of womyn, Launch speeds in on a motorcycle to steal the crystal.

Hnnnnnnnngh. So, that lady-knee earlier was hers!

She steals the crystal right out from under Gokou and Kuririn. Now she'll be rich!

What she doesn't realize is that she's already rich...in beautiful shoulders.

Lucifer is OUTRAGED that the ceremony has been interrupted!

So what exactly IS the ceremony? Basically, they built a giant space cannon, and they need the crystal to power it. However the crystal will only charge up during a full moon. So they were waiting for the full moon to charge the crystal, which is happening tonight, and wanted to drink maiden-blood in the meantime just to like, get high or whatever. Then when the full moon reached its apex and charged the crystal, they'd load it into the space cannon and blow up the sun. After that it'd be eternal night and Lucifer could walk the Earth, like Caine from Kung-Fu.

Launch has now RUINED ALL OF THAT with her thicc 'bod. All I'm gonna say is, I don't see that motorcycle complaining.

She sneezes and turns back into Blue Launch who is, of course, super-nice.

BECAUSE WOMEN HAVE BIPOLAR PERSONALITIES AND SOMETIMES FLY OFF THE HANDLE AT YOU AND YOU AREN'T SURE WHAT YOU DID

LOL

Gokou has the crystal now...but Lucifer has Kuririn!

This prompts Gokou to hand it over to save Kuririn's life.

Our heroes are then all imprisoned in a crystal wall, and the ceremony resumes. The full moon has reached the apex, and you know what that means!

Gokou... Becomes Oozaru, shattering the wall that holds everyone.

The Crew is like "hlep"

He's interested in only one thing: Launch and her sweet gam-a-roos, that I wish were wrapped around my face.

This goes on for a minute until Oolong turns into a giant garden shear and lops off Gokou's tail.

Now Gokou's tail-less, at least until the next movie. Everyone seems pretty traumatized.

Lucifer has fully powered-up the crystal with moonlight, and now he can blow up the sun. However, he didn't plan very well because the good guys are loose again.

Gokou unleashes the Kamehameha to destroy the cannon! This results in a massive chain reaction as the crystal blows up and takes down all of Devil's Castle with it.

Lucifer is consumed by the explosion and that's it for this guy. Kind of surprised he never actually fought Gokou. He seemed kind of powerful. Need to take a few points off this movie for not having an actual boss battle.

Everyone lives happily ever after and poses for the credits!

Except wait, real quick we get more Roshi Shenanigans. He's smitten with Launch and thinks she's the Sleeping Princess.

She sneezes and becomes Blonde Launch, who doesn't know where she is and is PISSED.

She then proceeds to SHOOT ROSHI 3 TIMES.

I can't say I'm sympathetic.

Our heroes all back up into the ocean (including turtle) and it's a HILARIOUS ENDING~!

That was an improvement over the first movie, and lots of Launch is pretty radical to the max as kids say, but here's hoping the other two DB movies will be substantial improvements.




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