DRAGON BALL Z – BROLY TRIPLE FEATURE (a J!-ENT Anime Blu-ray Disc Review)

Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan

A Saiyan warrior has arrived on Earth and his plea for assistance had ignited a clash between Goku and Vegeta.  Sparks will fly as the two battle to be the one to confront the galaxy’s new menace, yet the true danger lies much closer.  The volatile Broly has his own agenda, and his target is the most powerful Saiyan in the Universe!  But will it be Goku or Vegeta?

Broly – Second Coming

Defeated but far from dead, the Legendary Super Saiyan Broly has returned and he’s got a fierce thirst for revenge.  Not only will he threaten Goku, but his rage will imperil every innocent soul on the peaceful planet.  All Earth’s heroes must unite and join this terrifying battle, an undertaking which could prove their last!

BIO BROLY

Broly is back and more deadly than ever!  A mysterious substance has been released from a secret laboratory when the creeping slime combines powers with Broly.  Only Trunks can prevent Earth’s Day of Reckoning.

In November 2007, FUNimation Entertainment had their first release using Hi-Definition Blu-ray technology with the release of their two of the most successful  “DRAGON BALL Z” films “Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan” (the eighth “DRAGON BALL Z” film released on March 1993) and “Broly – The Second Coming” (the tenth “DRAGON BALL Z” film released on March 1994).

In March 2009, FUNimation Entertainment has now released all three Broly films on Blu-ray via a Broly triple feature featuring a new Dolby TrueHD 5.1 soundtrack.

As a “DRAGON BALL Z” fan, the Broly films have always been my favorites, especially “Broly – The Second Coming” which I first saw (in Japanese) at an anime club meeting back in 1994.

But whenever there is a film with Broly, you can expect a lot of action and intense battles.  And personally, the “DRAGON BALL Z” films that involve “Broly” plot-wise are the best!

Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan

The eighth film “Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan” takes place around the time period possibly right after the “Cell” saga (because Future Trunks is featured).  The Z-fighters are at the park for some R&R while Chichi and Goku are at an important school meeting in order for Gohan to hopefully get entrance to a good school.

Out of nowhere, a spaceship arrives at the park and Paragus with many soldiers ask Vegeta (or Prince Vegeta) to come back to claim the planet “New Vegeta”.  But it’s important for Vegeta to fight the legendary super saiyan who has been destroying new planets.

Meanwhile, King Kai calls Goku telepathically that there is a new threat and he needs to stop this new threat.

With Future Trunks, Gohan, Krillin, Master Rohshi and Oolong traveling with Vegeta to the new planet, Paragus introduces his son Broly.  While at the new planet, the group notices that something fishy is going on.  There are slaves from different planets being mistreated and learn that Paragus may not be a friendly Saiyan.

Goku manages to make it to the new planet and comes across Paragus and Broly and when Broly sees Goku (Kakkarot), he starts to get angry for some reason.  After several interactions with Broly, Goku starts to discover that perhaps, Broly may be the legendary super Saiyan and to make things worse, there is something quite unstable about him.

You learn that Paragus and Broly were executed and left for dead by Vegeta’s father before Planet Vegeta was destroyed.  Paragus has been using Broly as a way to conquer planets and leverage to become a great leader, while Broly.  Since he was born with ultimate power levels, he was deemed a threat and executed as a baby.  But somehow, he and his father were able to escape Planet Vegeta.

As a baby, Broly was born in a station right next to Kakkarot (Goku) and because of Kakkarot’s constant crying, it somehow caused some resentment in Broly and somehow, he blames Kakkarot for his misfortune.

And thus, Broly and his father Paragus want their revenge against Vegeta and Goku.  The two Saiyans must team up with their friends to take on the most powerful Saiyan ever.

Broly – The Second Coming

For the tenth “DRAGON BALL Z” film titled “Broly – The Second Coming”, Vedil, Trunks and Goten are searching for the Dragon Balls.  The group needs only one more and thus they end up in a village full of people in fear.

The people have used their young as sacrifices every year to appease a monster and with another child being offered for a sacrifice, Vedil is not going to stand up for it.  Thus the three decide to take on the monster that the village has been fearful of.

As they wait for the monster, Vedil and the other two hide inside a pot.  Both Trunks and Goten are hungry and Trunks manages to steal an apple.  Goten is so hungry but when he tries to get food, Vedil slaps him.  Goten starts crying and then you notice that Broly has been encased in ice and the cries of Goten (who he thinks is Kakkarot) awakes him.

Meanwhile, the three end up defeating the monster and helping the village, not until Broly makes his appearance and Vedil, Trunks and Goten try to fight him before he destroys any village or the planet.

Trunks and Goten manage to spot the final Dragon Ball and think that maybe Shenlong can fight Broly but Goten doesn’t know how to activate the Dragon Balls.  The three try to fight the best as they can, meanwhile Gohan senses trouble and speeds off to help his brother, Vedil and Trunks and thus setting up a major battle between Gohan and Broly.

BIO BROLY

For the eleventh “DRAGON BALL Z” film titled “BIO BROLY”, if the wheel’s not broken, why fix it?  And thus Broly is back but this time, Goku and Gohan are not here to save the day.

The film takes place after the tournament after the Majin Buu saga as Android 18 is awaiting her money as promised by Hercule.  In the martial arts tournament, in order to have Mr. Satan (Hercule) save face in front of his legion of fans, Android 18 faked her loss after cutting a deal for huge amount of money which Hercule agreed to.

As Krillin (with his and Android 18’s daughter Nan), Trunks and Goten wait for Android 18 to get her payment, a man mysteriously appears at Hercule’s mansion and issues him a challenge.  Fight with Lord Jaguar or his secret of paying off a contestant of the martial arts tournament to win the match will be made public to the media.

Knowing that he’s being blackmailed, Hercule agrees and is whisked away to Lord Jaguar’s headquarters.  Also, accompanying him is Android 18 who wants her money.   Trunks and Goten who want to see a fight secretly follows.

Lord Jaguar runs an elaborate bio-warrior facility and has created a number of bio-warriors to fight Hercule but Hercule scared out of his wits has Android 18 beat them in exchange for payment of more money which Android 18 agrees to.  But with so many of them, Goten and Trunks appear and want to fight to.

But to the surprise of Trunks, he sees Maloja, the man from the village where they lost fought Broly (from the 10th film) who has taken the body parts of Broly and given to Lord Jaguar to use in his bio-warrior experiments and thus recreating the Saiyan.  But because the whole experiment has gone awry, Bio-Broly looks more like a big giant sludge with the powers of Broly.

Android 18, Trunks and Goten are the only ones who can take him down.  But will they have the strength to do so?

VIDEO AND AUDIO:

“DRAGON BALL Z” is featured in High Definition Widescreen 1080P.  According to a flyer inside the case, there is information about the transfer and how the original Japanese film masters were transferred via an industry-standard Spirit DataCine, passing through a Digital Vision DVNR10000 to remove film grain and another round of processing using a Teranex VCooo video computer.  These digital noise-reduction units helped to remove thousands of instances of dirt, scratches and debris.

The cleaned footage signal went through a da Vinci 2K Plus color system to ensure that the colors were true to the original film prints.  The final media for transfer was Sony’s HDCAM, a high-definition digital tape.

With that being said, let me first say that a lot of older Japanese animated films have not been taken care of.  In fact, many anime films have had warping and major issues that restoration even to DVD has not been all that great.  Unless, there was an expensive facility developed for it (such as the recent “AKIRA” release which was an expensive remastering process), there’s only so much that can be done to make an older Japanese film look great.

There is a big difference between the video quality of “Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan” which has looked like the previous “DRAGON BALL Z” films that were released on Blu-ray and “Broly – The Second Coming”.  With “Broly – The Second Coming”, one thing you’ll notice is a slight art difference with the background art and also the colors are much more vibrant and colorful.  The same can be said about “BIO BROLY” which came out four months after “Broly – The Second Coming”, both are just vibrant and colorful films.  With the tenth film utilizing more sunlight and outdoor animation, “BIO BROLY” takes place in the dark headquarters of Lord Jaguar.

One can say that the later the film is, the better the colors and I suppose that you can say in this case, the tenth and eleventh film is much, much cleaner and colorful than the eighth.

“Broly – the Legendary Super Saiyan” does look good for an anime film that is 16-years-old and “Broly – Second Coming”  and “BIO BROLY” which are both 15-years-old as the colors and animation are much, much better in picture quality compared to the older “DRAGON BALL Z” films and specials preceding it.

Now one of the things that has been an issue with older “DRAGON BALL Z” films is the scratches and dust.  Despite the DNR units that helped to remove thousands of instances of difrt, scratches and debris, again… with a lot of the original Japanese film sources not really being taken care of, there is only so much that can be done.  And in this case, there are visible scratches, dust and even some warping at times but nowhere as numerous as the first two “DRAGON BALL Z” films.

As for audio, this is the biggest difference from the original double feature 2007 release.  The original had audio presented in English 5.1 Dolby Surround Sound which was typical of many Blu-ray releases back in 2007 plus the English Stereo and Original Japanese tracks.

This triple feature Blu-ray disc release now sports a DolbyTrueHD English 5.1 with Japanese music track and a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 with US Music track and the original Japanese audio track.  Also, the double feature release from 2007 only featured the US Music track and the Japanese audio track.  So, it’s great for this release to have the English dub with Japanese music track as a selection.  So, for the DBZ purists who don’t care for the heavy metal track will not be force to listen to it.

Having watched these film in original Japanese before, I watched it again in Japanese but when watching on Blu-ray, you want that awesome sound, so watching these two films with the Pantera and rock n’ roll guitar and percussion driven music was definitely a first for me.

I have to admit that hearing the heavy metal like guitar churning and heavy hitting music, definitely added an enjoyable side to watching these two films and really gave the film some extra energy during the battle scenes.

But at the same time, now listening to the English track with Japanese music, I like how the music takes advantage of your subwoofer and low bass frequencies.  The audio is front channel heavy but overall,  a very nice touch to that audio track, so both audio tracks are well done.

And when it comes to the English dubbing, FUNimation Entertainment has one of the best well-cast anime series with “DRAGON BALL Z” television series and films.  In fact, it’s actually difficult for me to watch the original Japanese (that I grew up watching for years) because of the significant vocals with the English dub track.  So, the English dub track was well-acted and again, enjoyable!

SPECIAL FEATURES:

This triple feature Blu-ray has no major special features but the FUNimation Entertainment trailers.

With many “DRAGON BALL Z” films being short and sweet, one of the exciting things about Broly is that he has made his appearance in three films.  There’s no doubt that he was a popular kick ass arch nemesis of the Saiyans and when there is a film that stars Broly, you know that the film is going to have intense action and hardcore battles.

Suffice to say, the Broly films are my favorite “DRAGON BALL Z” films.  These films (especially the eighth and tenth film) have a very good plot, hardcore battles and overall, they are just just fun to watch.

“Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan” is the longest running “DRAGON BALL Z” film at 71 minutes.  The second film “Broly – The Second Coming” is about 60 minutes long and “BIO BROLY” is third and lasts around 45 minutes.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed watching these three films again, especially my personal favorite “Broly – The Second Coming” on Blu-ray.  The colors were just vibrant and after watching many of the films out on Blu-ray thus far, to see the clarity of the tenth film was just amazing.

Granted, the transfer is not perfect and there are signs of scratches, dust and a little film warping on very few frames but I was very impressed with the transfer to Blu-ray for both films considering how old the films are.

For those of you who own the first Blu-ray release with the two Broly films and wonder if this triple feature is worth it, I have to say it is.  All three films have a Dolby TrueHD track but most importantly, for those who wanted the English dub with the Japanese music and not the heavy metal English music, you now have that option.  And of course, you get the eleventh film “BIO BROLY”.  Otherwise, if you don’t care about “BIO BROLY” and you prefer the heavy metal track, then by all means, the original Blu-ray would suffice.  But more than likely, if you are collecting all “Dragon Ball Z” films on Blu-ray, you’ll need this release.

It’s important to note that many film companies released their Blu-rays back in 2007 with PCM uncompressed audio or Dolby Digital 5.1, and for home theater enthusiasts, many wish that these older Blu-ray releases receive a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 or even a DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack.  So, in a way, I’m not really too upset of having an upgraded version via this “Broly Triple Feature” over the original 2007 release.  For this Blu-ray, you get the eleventh movie and a better audio soundtrack.

Overall, the “DRAGON BALL Z” Broly films are just fun to watch.  I have to admit that I enjoyed listening to FUNimation’s heavy metal, guitar and percussion driven music soundtrack during the battles, considering I’m more into the original Japanese dialogue and music.  Being a hardcore “DRAGON BALL Z” fan, I was a bit skeptical at first of heavy rock bands being used for the musical soundtrack of the English dub but it definitely added a charged up, energetic feel to those action-packed moments.  And there are many action-packed scenes on all three features.

Overall, another solid “DRAGON BALL Z” release and these three action-packed films that look very good on Blu-ray.   “DRAGON BALL Z” fans, this Broly triple feature is definitely worth checking out and having in your collection.