Korean website, Star News, posted a recent interview with the actor who is playing Yamcha in the upcoming Dragonball movie, Joon Park.

I always wanted to be a Hollywood actor, because I’m not good at the Korean language for acting in a Korean movie.

Dragonball was my third audition in Hollywood. I went to the audition, and I was called up from the director to come audition again. When I went to audition again, there were actors who were well known in the U.S., so I had to fight them. I thought “Not a chance,” because I’m “God” in Korea, but a “shit” in the U.S. (laugh)

I entered the audition wearing a hat and shorts, and as soon as the director looked at me, he said “You are Yamcha.” I still can’t believe it. I won’t appear the first 25% of the movie, but I will later on.

I met Chow Yun-Fat for the first time when we traveled by helicopter. He was indeed a kind person. He was very friendly.

It isn’t easy to make a comic into a movie. It could have became too childish. So we were trying to maintain a middle ground. There will be a lot of CG in the movie. This is a family movie, so the shooting set was a very family-like atmosphere. “Speed Racer” was a very technical set, “Dragonball” set’s atmosphere was kind of like inviting staff to your home and having a barbecue.

Details of the movie are still a secret. It will be released on March 14th next year in South Korea and Japan for the first time in the world. Toys and video games will be released in the near future. My toys too. (laugh)

Emmy Rossum (who plays Bulma) recently appeared at the Bonnie Hunt show and mentioned a little bit about her role in the upcoming Dragonball film. You can read the Dragonball portion below or just watch the video.

We were in Mexico in the desert for four months shooting this movie.

What was that like?

It was really fun actually, Iam from New York City born and bred. But Iam kind of a little bit more outdoorsy than I probably think Iam. I had to learn how to ride a motorcycle, kickbox, how to shoot a gun…which was crazy.

Well there you have it, she mentioned she had to learn how to kickbox. So Bulma will be fighting in the film. Your thoughts?

Chow Yun Fat (who plays Master Roshi in Dragonball) was recently interviewed at a press conference in Hong Kong. He basically was asked if he would work any Hong Kong films in the future and replied saying he has read several scripts, unfortunately those characters don’t fit him well. He also went on to say he will later set off to the United States and voice the movie Dragonball. I believe he pretty much stated he will be dubbing the Chinese version of the Dragonball movie, but that isn’t 100%. Although this isn’t anything big at all really, still an interesting bit of news. Read below for a portion of the interview (sorry its poorly translated)

For “Dragon Ball”, “Shanghai” dubbing

Zaipai when talking about the film, the Colombian said that he had read the script many, but not to their role. As for the Johnnie To invite him to perform foreign film, he said that the script is still being repeated changes in order to balance the tastes of East and West. Then he would go to the United States as “Dragon Ball” voice, “Shanghai” will work in the United Kingdom dub, or the end of the year will be busy next year’s workload will be less.  

Source

Ok, I was asked not to post this verbatim (so I summarized it all) so I ask of anyone that wishes to post this to email me and ask permission. But anyways, I did get another chance to speak with FOX and I asked a few questions regarding the promotion of the Dragonball movie. Some of which we pretty much speculated already, some slightly new information and some questions couldn’t be answered just yet.

1. When will promotion for the film Dragonball officially begin and what can we expect?
Promotion will truly begin when we launch the official trailer. Expect to see plenty of TV spots and action closer to the release. This is typical with any campaign. The fans will really feel the motion of the movie to begin by the end of the year and will be promoted at many targeted events in 2009.

2. A Junior Novel and Video Game have been confirmed. Any other possible merchandise? Maybe a TV spin off or new comic series?
Currently could not be answered, hopefully they will get back to me on this.

3. There has been a rumor going around that the sequal to this film will begin filming in the first quarter of 2009. Any truth to this?
There is no news on a sequal just yet. We tend to wait out and see how the initial film does and if sequals can be financed.

4. How reliant is this film on visual effects? Is the majority of the money going towards CGI (such as cities, fight scenes, etc.)?
There will be a lot of amazing effects and yes.

5. How would you compare the official trailer that releases later this year to the teaser that was shown during the licensing expo?
The actual trailer will be different. The teaser shown didn’t have enough ‘energy’ and did not fully reflect the film itself. The teaser was only inteded to show certain elements for L&M purposes and to introduce characters to trade people. This piece did not show the hardcore action that the movie will contain, but the full trailer will.

8. Thank you for your time.
Thanks!

DBTheMovie.com also has a source that described some upcoming new high quality promo pictures.

Goku is sitting sideways on a (non-moving) type of bike/buggy. I’m not sure if it is a three or four wheeler, but there are two wheels at the front, it looks all mean and futuristic and most importantly, it’s dusty and needs a good wash.

Goku is chomping into what looks to be a turkey drumstick. Either that or it’s a gigantic chicken drumstick. He’s wearing his grey-black jacket and dark trousers and it’s in a street setting.

In a fight scene with Goku it appears that Piccolo’s ribbed armor is strapped on around his sides. He has strange black leather gloves on and a long sword with a square, not pointed end. Around his collar is quite a bit of black braid and brocade.

In all the photos of Piccolo I’ve seen so far, he isn’t green. But in the details ones he looks like he has moss forming in his crevices, so he does have a green tinge.

Over his ribbed armor, Piccolo wears a full length hooded cloak, which is the dark browny crimson color as seen in the trailer. It has a rich texture, it looks very exotic and has rows of Sequined circles up the front panels. Extremely nice and billowy.

When Piccolo does swirly things it is revealed that he has striped panels of dark velvety pink at the back of his cloak.

Overall, I’d say he looks like a modern, darker version of Piccolo from the show. But with a bad case of black ear wax and a much better cloak.

It has been confirmed that a video adaptation of the upcoming Dragonball film is in the works. No actual details have surfaced yet, but we did get this quote from Playthings confirming it from 20th Century FOX.

HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Twentieth Century Fox has appointed Gary Rosenfeld to the position of Senior Vice President of New Media Licensing, a role with oversight of the studio’s portfolio of video game projects and management responsibility for Twentieth Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising’s (Fox L&M) games development staff.

Rosenfeld will explore opportunities in the growing PC online game space and investigate new business models and partnerships in the console publishing area. A handful of Fox properties will make it to the top of his list as he begins this new endeavor, starting with the studio’s major upcoming film releases and television brands, including Avatar, Night at the Museum - The Battle Of The Smithsonian, Ice Age 3, Dragonball, The Simpsons and Family Guy.

Also, Brian Tyler (DB movie score composer) has mentioned more about his work on the Dragonball film.

“I’m a Dragonball, you know, fan… [and] I agreed to take it before they shot it… So, I have this kind of habit of, when I’m a fan of something, I end up taking it before they even shoot it. And I called up to the, you know, director and said ‘Hey man, I think we can really make this, you know, epic…” in the world; the angle of Dragonball being a different world, that it’s kind of a parallel universe of what we are, but, it has a whole mythic, legendary aspect to it, like, ‘this has been going on for thousands of years’ kind of thing, so that’s the vibe of this score. Which we’re doing right now.”

Dragonball Live posted an article from the french magazine Cine Live that reports some Dragonball movie aspects from director James Wong and Producer Tim Van Rellim. They reveal what the ‘volcano’ pre release picture is used for in movie and if Master Roshi stays true to his manga character.

Is Roshi true to the manga character?

“Yes, somewhat,” said director James Wong. “We kept his main features, like his humor. But in the manga Roshi is a true sexual pervert, which wouldn’t work in a family film. So we removed that part of the character.”

“I discovered that Dragonball had such a rich universe that it would take several films to cover all of its treasures. My goal with this movie is not to convince existing fans that Dragonball is great, they already know this, but to give a new audience. More adults, as I was a neophyte myself before discovering the manga!”

Director Tim Van Rellim reveals the volcano

“Here, we can build a large [volcano], including the decoration of the volcano where the hero must take one of seven Dragon Balls.” The crater is impressive, gigantic artificial arena. “By day, the volcano is nothing. But at night, the lighting for the scene takes it to another dimension.” And that’s not counting the digital special effects that will fill the green screen with lava.

DBTheMovie.com posted a scan from SFX magazine which features a new interview with James Marsters (Piccolo). He reveals a few new details from the Dragonball movie.

Have you met any Dragonball fans?
Iam one. I watched every episode of Dragonball, and Dragonball Z, and Dragonball GT.

How true to the anime will the Dragonball film be?
The thing to remember about the first film is that it’s not Dragonball Z, it’s Dragonball. There was an entire season of the anime Dragonball which no one really watches, because the lead character, Goku, is just a little kid. It doesn’t quite have the power of Dragonball Z. But it is the beginning and you just can’t skip past that. In the film, they didn’t make Goku a little kid - we meet Goku on his 18th birthday. So it exists in a world kind of between Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z in tone.

If you’re familiar with Dragonball, you know that my character - Lord Piccolo - starts out as a very old man. Which might be kind of a shock for people expecting the Piccolo from Dragonball Z. He’s the villain. He’s been in prison for 2,000 years, he’s old, he’s angry. His youth has been taken from him. He’s been searching for the Dragonballs so that he can turn himself back into his younger self. This is right out of the cartoon.

I fought to make him as old and ugly as possible. I wanted there to be a truly memorable transformation on with audiences going, “Oh my God, that young guy played that old guy?”

The first time we did the make up it took 17 hours. I think that was really down to me pressing for more age and more decrepitude.

Is there flying in the movie?
Oh my God, yeah. Lots of flying.

Bulma’s character, Emmy Rossum, spoke with MTV recently. She reveals a few spoilers including info regarding Piccolo and info about future DB movie merchandise including the video game and action figures.

With shooting completed for the live-action adaptation of popular anime/manga series “Dragonball,” actress Emmy Rossum told MTV News that she’s finally washed the blue coloring out of her hair and returned to a life sans catsuit and cartoon weaponry — but with a few new skills in her repertoire.

“In it, [I'm] riding a motorcyle in a leather catsuit, so that’s always fun — and I have five guns that spin all around,” said Rossum of her role as Bulma, the sometimes-partner to the film’s hero, Goku (played by Justin Chatwin). “I had never ridden a motorcycle before. I think I was more concerned about the safety of the people in the crew because sometimes I would lose control and veer randomly off into people.”

As for her character’s fondness for gunplay, Rossum said she’d never fired — or even held — a gun before “Dragonball,” but feels more than confident about pulling off her character’s trigger-happy habits thanks to some training with local Marines.

That calm-under-fire training will probably come in handy for the “Phantom of the Opera” actress, considering the level of scrutiny an adaptation of one of the anime and manga worlds’ most popular properties brings with it. According to Rossum, fans should be pleasantly surprised with the way the property has been translated to a live-action project.

“When I signed on to the project, I was a big fan of the anime and knew [Bulma] as the iconic blue, bobbed character and wanted to stay true to that — but we also wanted to make it realistic,” explained Rossum. “So in keeping with the director and what the studio really wanted, we adapted her look to be a little more realistic and human, and little bit more believable for contemporary day. She’s pretty bad-ass, but still quirky and fun, and kind of ridiculous in the way she is in the anime.”

That doesn’t mean the legions of “Dragonball” faithful aren’t far from her mind, though. Rossum said her first encounter with “Dragonball” was the Saturday morning cartoon, only to realize that “it’s really so much more than that — from the comic to [the cartoon] to the whole franchise and brand, so many people feel such a closeness to these characters.”

“So, it’s a little bit stressful to play a character that so many people hold close to their hearts,” she admitted, “but you just hope you do it justice and they like it.”

Rossum also hinted at a few aspects of the film that should have fans guessing, telling MTV News that she’s “seen some wax molds” for potential action figures, and cautiously acknowledged that a video game based on the film was “a possibility.”

Possibly the most interesting tease she offered up was her anticipation of not only seeing “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” alum James Marsters appear on screen in his role as Lord Piccolo, but also “an incredible monster that I can’t talk about that is very, very tall.”

“It’s actually a very tall man — an 8-foot man,” she added. “It’s based on something else from the… You know, I can’t really say anything else.”

Motorcycle incidents and catsuits aside, Rossum said she’d be up for a return to the role in a “Dragonball” sequel, and vehemently denied rumors that the project was in danger of being cancelled or otherwise shut down.

“Oh, no. I really doubt that’s possible,” said Rossum. “That’s not going to happen.”