This is Dragon Ball before it knew what it wanted to be, which means it's all energy and no weight. Toriyama's character designs feel alive in a way the TV series couldn't quite capture frame-to-frame, and the painterly backgrounds make every location feel like a place you could actually walk through instead of a cartoon set. At 51 minutes, it moves too fast to develop anything real, but that speed is the point, you're watching pure adventure, no philosophy, no stalling. King Gourmeth is forgettable, the pacing leaves character moments gasping on the floor, but the fluidity of the animation and the sheer lightness of watching these four strangers collide over magic orbs makes this feel like a snapshot of what Toriyama wanted Dragon Ball to be before the TV series turned it into something else. Watch this if you want to see the original DNA of the franchise unfiltered, not if you're looking for depth.

Goku, Bulma, Oolong and Yamucha are each hunting for the dragon balls, every one of them for a different reason, when their paths meet. Their search soon brings them into conflict with Gourmeth, an evil king who is after the same dragon balls. The film is a retelling of how Dragon Ball begins, offering an alternate version of the first meeting between these characters. It mixes action, adventure and comedy.