Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might (1990)

Strong and Moving!

One of my all time favorites.

A different way of telling a story

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

The only real thing holding this movie back from a 10 Star rating is the ending being weak. There is more comedy and action than the 2 previous movies, but the ending leaves a lot to be desired. The build-up is great, the conflict is good, but Goku having a second Spirit Bomb that kills Turles just seems like a cop out. I get the idea, Goku uses the Tree of Might's energy against itself, thus saving the world, but that's only explained after the conflict's over, with King Kai explaining it to the viewer. Don't get me wrong, the movie is really good, and I can look past the weak ending, but that's the only real problem I had. The rest is great, especially the introduction of Icarus, and his connection with Gohan. A lot of good here, and only one real flaw, the best I've seen yet.

Entertaining. Didn't have a lot of substance, but it has a lot of good animation and fighting action. The plot is halfway decent, but don't even try to fit it into the DBZ timeline...apparently this is after Frieza, but Goku can't go Super Saiya-jin. I think. In any case, the fights are excellent, the dubbing is pretty nice, and this film really shows how exciting DBZ could be if they cut the trademark DBZ Long Stalling/Charge-up Sequences out of the cartoon, and maybe half the episodes...anyway, in general, it's pretty nice.

If you like the series this is one of the more enjoyable movies I have seen in the series (Dead Zone and the World's Strongest are the only other two I have seen). If you are a DBZ fan one thing to keep in mind is that this does not conincide with the series. It is best to think of them as different entities (I do wish they could get the same people to do the dubbing though). This one is especially good because you actually see some of the other characters involved in the fight for the earth. Yamacha and Tien and Choutzou all actually take part in the action. In the series they rarely do anything after the Saiyan Saga (the one where Vegeta is introduced). Aside from the fact Vegeta is not in this it is very good. Goku fights a Saiyan named Turlos who is threating the earth. There are some very good battles and you get to see Goku use the Kao Ken technique and the spirit bomb. A very good ending fight as well make this movie very entertaining.

Being a huge Dragon Ball Z fan (via Cartoon Network), I was hoping to find a good movie out of "Tree of Might." Unfortunately, the film didn't quite live up to my expectations.When I first saw this movie I was just getting started in the Dragon Ball Z universe and I was often wondering what was going on. Maybe that was my problem. Or maybe it was the fact that it wasn't as enjoyable to watch as the TV series. Excellent fight sences but other than that, the story was lacking.As I watched this film I didn't have the same feelings as I did in the TV series. There was never the sense of suspence that the series created.For those who are looking to find out what the Dragon Ball Z universe is all about, avoid this film and stick with the TV series (which are available on tape).For those who are fans of Dragon Ball Z, take this film with a grain of salt.