Nov 14 2007Chatwin, Marsters Join 'Dragonball'

I still don't fully understand why they've decided to film the long, confusing amalgam of giant, angular hair, motion lines, and, more importantly, the constant screaming that is what I've seen of the Dragonball anime. But they are. And since they are, I have to say, they're doing a pretty decent job casting it.

For Goku, the lead protagonist, they've decided to go with Justin Chatwin, the annoying kid from War of the Worlds and The Invisible. From what I remember of Goku, he was either a man with a boyish face or a boy with a man-like body. Either way, it was easy to understand why the other characters were constantly trying to punch this man-child. It's impressive they were able to find that same quality in a real actor.

To play the villain Piccolo, director James Wong has chosen Buffy star James Marsters, an actor whose face naturally carries the necessary evil angularity. It will be interesting to see if they keep the character's signature white turban or if they decide to just sculpt Marsters bleached gel-chunks into something passable.

As I've said before, if they can make this into anything I can even loosely understand, it will already be a step above the pre-pubsecent Japanese mind explosion of the cartoon.

'Dragonball' comes to bigscreen [Variety]