Hong Kong actor and director Stephen Chow is working with Hollywood studio Twentieth Century Fox to produce a live movie adapted from popular Japanese manga “Dragon Ball”.

Dragon Ball Z

Dragon Ball Manga and Anime

Dragon Ball is created by Akira Toriyama in 1984 and was originally published at Shonen Jump, a weekly Japanese manga magazine. Dragon Ball is one of the most popular manga ever produced and was remade into anime in the 90s.

The story centres on Son Goku as he searches for the mystical artifacts known as Dragon Balls which have enormous power. The later parts of the plots revolve around Goku’s quest to protect the earth from evil forces who want to take over the planet and control the Dragon Balls.

The anime version of Dragon Ball is made into 2 entities, the “Dragon Ball” and “Dragon Ball Z” (DBZ). Dragon Ball adapts the first 16 volumes of the manga, while DBZ covers the later 26 volumes which portrays the adulthood of Goku.

Dragon Ball movie

The Dragon Ball movie will adapt stories from Dragon Ball Z. The movie will start filming by end of 2007 (shooting in Montreal according to unconfirmed sources) and is scheduled to release in August 2008.

Stephen Chow, a long time fan of Dragon Ball, will produce the movie. James Wong of “The X-Files” and “Final Destination” fame is the director.

Justin Chatwin (“War of the Worlds”) will play Son Goku, while James Marsters (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”) will play Goku’s arch rival Piccolo. Other major roles are currently being cast… a few favourites to join the cast include “Heroes” star James Kyson Lee and Hong Kong based actor Edison Chen.