Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone
Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone, originally released theatrically in Japan as simply Dragon Ball Z and later as for its Japanese VHS and Laserdisc release, is a 1989 Japanese anime fantasy martial arts film, the fourth installment in the "Dragon Ball" film series, and the first under the "Dragon Ball Z" moniker. It was originally released in Japan on July 15 at the "Toei Manga Matsuri" film festival along with the 1989 film version of "Himitsu no Akko-chan", the first "Akuma-kun" movie, and the film version of "Kidou Keiji Jiban". Despite continuity inconsistencies , "Dead Zone" acts as a prelude to the "Dragon Ball Z" television series and is the only film to get a follow-up within the series, that being the Garlic Jr. arc which takes place between the main Frieza and Android arcs. The canonicity of this arc is debated as it does not appear in the original manga and is largely considered to be filler. Plot. Following his defeat by Goku at the 23rd World Martial Arts Tournament, Piccolo trains alone when he is caught in an ambush by a group of mysterious warriors. Chi-Chi along with her father  and son, Gohan, are attacked by the same group while Goku is away fishing. He senses the danger his family faces and returns to find that his son has been abducted. The impish Garlic Jr. is responsible and commenced the attack in order for him to retrieve the four-star Dragon Ball that was attached to Gohan's hat. Garlic Jr. senses an immense power within Gohan, and decides to make him his pupil rather than kill him. After gathering the remaining six magical Dragon Balls, Garlic Jr. summons the eternal dragon Shenron and he wishes for immortality. Goku prepares  to rescue his son when Kami, Earth's guardian, arrives and explains that centuries prior, he and Garlic Jr.'s father, Garlic, competed for the position of Guardian of the Earth and Kami was victorious. In revenge, Garlic unleashed a demonic horde onto the Earth until Kami defeated him and ended the invasion. Goku proceeds to search for Gohan when he is attacked by the villain's henchmen while Kami faces Garlic Jr. Krillin and Piccolo arrive with the latter defeating henchman Sansho while Goku manages to defeat the other two henchmen, Ginger and Nicky. Meanwhile, Kami is bested by  Garlic Jr. until Goku and Piccolo rescue him. With Garlic Jr.'s newly obtained immortality and a new, muscular form, the rivals Goku and Piccolo are forced to work together and are able to eventually defeat him. Still possessing disdain for one another and mistakenly believing Garlic Jr. to be dead, Goku and Piccolo prepare to fight when Garlic Jr. opens up a portal into another dimension; a void of darkness known as the "Dead Zone". Gohan becomes enraged as he witnesses his father and friends in danger and releases his latent power, hurdling Garlic Jr. into his own vortex  to be trapped for all eternity. Unable to recall the events, Gohan believes that his father defeated Garlic Jr. while Goku realizes his son has amazing hidden potential. Piccolo vows to defeat Goku while watching him and his friends depart. Cast. Toshio Furukawa's voice from the original Japanese version is retained in the AB Groupe dub at the beginning of this film, when Piccolo screams and destroys a large rock formation. In the Funimation English dub's credits, Christopher R. Sabat is miscredited as playing the Ox King, a mistake carried over into the Funimation dub of "". Music. English  dub soundtracks. The 1997 Pioneer release kept the original Japanese music. The score for the 2005 English dub's composed by Mark Menza. The Double Feature release contains an alternate audio track containing the English dub with original Japanese background music by Shunsuke Kikuchi and an ending theme of "Detekoi Tobikiri Zenkai Pawā!". Box office. At the Japanese box office, the film sold tickets and earned a net distribution rental income of , equivalent to estimated gross receipts of approximately (). International releases. North America. The film was licensed in North America by Funimation and the home video rights were sub-licensed  to Pioneer Entertainment. Pioneer was released on VHS, LaserDisc, and DVD on December 17, 1997. They used the same voice cast as the TV series did at the time, and was dubbed by Ocean Productions. They released the film as "Dead Zone". As a feature on the Pioneer DVD, deleted scenes from the original episodes 1 and 9 are shown in Japanese with English subtitles, as these two episodes were yet to be dubbed in full at the time. Since then, Funimation released the movie of the Rock the Dragon Edition set with Ocean dub on DVD on August 13 , 2013, it has 53 edited episodes of the TV series, plus two edited movies of "" and "" as they aired on Toonami. Once their sub-license expired, Funimation released the movie to DVD in "Ultimate Uncut Edition" on May 31, 2005, with completely new dub done by Funimation's voice cast and an feature movie commentary. There's also re-released the movie on November 14, 2006 as part of a movie set subtitled "First Strike", also containing "" (1990) and "" (1990). It was later released in Double Feature set along with "The World's Strongest" (1990) for Blu-ray and DVD  on May 27, 2008, both feature full 1080p format in HD remastered 16:9 aspect ratio and an enhanced 5.1 surround mix. The film was re-released to DVD in remastered thinpak collection on November 1, 2011, containing the first 5 "Dragon Ball Z" Movies. Europe and Malaysia. AB Groupe, a French company that holds the license to the Dragon Ball franchise in most of Europe, licensed and dubbed the movie, which they re-titled "In Pursuit of Garlic". This dub featured a voice cast that was unknown for years, but it is now believed that English-speaking voice actors in  France were involved with this dub. "In Pursuit of Garlic" aired on TV in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, and was sold on DVD in the Netherlands by Bridge Entertainment Group in 2003. Speedy Video, a Malaysian-based company, released the film on Video CD, here subtitled "The Vengeance of the Demon King". Speedy also released the Pioneer English adaptation on VCD. Both the AB Groupe and Speedy dubs are notoriously known for inaccurate translations (e.g. Piccolo was called "Big Green" in the AB Groupe dub) and dialogue that did not fit the mouth flaps. Critical reception. "GameFan  magazine reviewed the DVD release in 1998 and gave it a B− rating.