Dragon Quest Movie: Your Story

Saara404 Jan 4, 2023

9.8

I found this on netflix and looked here for the reviews. To be honest I didn't want to watch it at all cuz of this one review, but then I was like "Nah, let's give it a shot.". The guy looked mad cuz it was bad in his opinion, but when I looked what it is based on I saw it's based on a manga that is based on a game. So same like pokemons, yu-gi-oh, etc. To be honest I don't know if they wanted to pursue you to play the game or just make a good movie. Pokemons, sao etc are made to pursue you to buy their games so that's why the story in these types of anime¨s are bad. But this one did an amazing job and suprised me in a lot of things. I'm that type of a person that can easily guess what will happen next and so most things do not suprise me. But I think this movie did an amazing job. I'm not gonna play the game though, cuz I'm not into these types of quest games. STORY DESCRIBTION: Be aware of spoilers for the whole movie! It all starts with small Luca that is following his father on quests. They both wants to save his mother that was captured by Gema (Something like a boss off this story). Gema is using his mother to open a portal to free the darkness, but since she is refusing to cooperate she is held captive in a magic ball. Luca and his father visit palace where they meet prince Henry that is a short while later captured by dragons that Gema send. Luca and his father goes to save him, but Luca his captured by Gema and his father gives his life to save Luca.  Luca and Henry are held capture in his mines where there are being held capture as slaves. After 10 whole years mining and just being slaves they get a tip from a guy. He tells them that the only way out is death. All of the dead people gets stuffed in a barrel and threw into a river. Henry and Luca sneak there and Luca puts on them fluid from molted bodies that's been thrown into a canal. Then they both hide themselves in a barrel. One of the pigs that works there spots the barell and opens it. Both of them play dead and thanks to the smell from those melted bodies they smell like dead people. The pigs then throws them out to the river. Because they are finally free they start to scream hapilly and so dragons guarding outside spots them and goes after them. They manage to run and hide in and old man's house that helps them get out.  Henry goes back to the palace and Luca goes to meet Ludman that is said to have the Zenitianth sword. Luca is known since childhood as the future zenitianth hero because of his eyes. Zenitianth hero os the only one who can wield the sword and also save the world. When he arrives the village is ruined by Bjorn who is.... well something between dog and dragon? Just something really strong. He is been attacking the village and stealing goods in it. It is said that the one who defeats him is going to as a reward marry Flora who is Ludman's daughter. When Luca arrives to Ludmans place he thinks that Luca is there to defeat Bjorn, but Luca tells him that he just wants a sword, even though he really likes Flora, he says he is no match for Bjorn. When they both ariive into the room where the sword is, they find out it's been stolen (By hole in the wall they realizes its been stolen) by Bjorn. Luca goes to the pub where he meets with Bianca, his old friend and both of them goes to the Bjorn cave. When they find the sword bjorn attacks them, Luca tries to distract him while Bianca who is riding Purrcy tries to get the sword. When she finds it she calls for Luca and gives him the sword, unluckily Luca is not able to take the sword out of it's sheet and they find out he is not the choosen Zenitian hero. Btoh of them tries to run but Bjorn is following them. When they are running looking for Bjorn's weakness Luca manages to find out it's probably his third eye. When he deafeats him he ask Bjorn if he wants to die or if he is going to swear loyalty to Luca.  After that Bianca asks for the reward, finding out that Flora's hand was the reward, she is happy for Luca trying to persuade him to ask for her hand. She helps him with it and so Luca ask for Flora's hand personally, she had a long crush on him so she is really happy. After a while (At night) he goes back to the pub so he can take a nap, but there he meets and old witch that gives him an elixir saying he is not happy with his choice etc. He tries the elixir and finds out that he loves Biana and not Flora. He goes to the Ludman and tells him to call off the engament and after that he proposes to Bianca and marry her and have a kid with her. Soon after Alus (Their kid) is born they are both turned into a stone for 8 whole years, Bianca get's captured by Gema nad turned into stone in his base after she refuses to help him. Alus and his babysitter Sancho (Luca's father's friend) manages to turn them back. While they fight Alus takes Zenitianth sword and takes it out of it's sheet revealing that he's been the Zenitianth hero the whole time. After that they all go to the city under Zenitianth base searching for the zenitianth dragon. They find out that he can't help them because he lost his dragon orb, Luca who found the orb as a kid gives the orb to him, only finding out they can't use it because its broken. Luca goes to visit the fairies and they send him back to his younger self from past and he gets the orb. After that they raid Gema's base and after a long fight they defeat him. But the moment they defeat him, Gema manages to open the portal, but Alus manages to seal it. the moment he seals it everything stops, except Luca. He get¨s attacked by a virus, but his slime Surarin who is in reality an antivirus manages to save him. We fins out that Luca is just a player whos been playing the game. And then we get the happy ending. ANIMATION: The animation for this was to be hones amazing, the CG for this movie was very well done, you really get a game feeling from it. Especially really well made for almost 2 hours long movie. SOUND: I really loved the sound effects and music was well chose for this movie. CHARACTERS: Characters in this movie are easily likable ane I think I could say well written, To be honest I liked all of them, even the villain, he was badass and funny as hell. Luca Luca is the main character of this movie. He is funny and really stong. He knows when to be serious and when he can make fun of something. I normally don't really like main characters but I liked him a lot. He is very shy guy when it comes to girls, but thanks to his strong sense for justice he rather tells truth then lies. When he finds out he likes Bianca instead of Flora, he tells the truth instead of being well off for the rest of his life.   Bianca  This girl is a total waifu material. She is really funny and cute through the whole story. When I first saw her I was kinda sad that he is going to marry Flora (Don't get me wrong, Flora is adorable as hell) but when he married Bianca instead I was so happy. Same as Luca she¨s got a strong sense for justice and when Gema want's her to open the portal, she instead attacks him as an answer. She don't get easily scared and it's a perfest strong woman for this movie as a female lead. (She kind of reminds me of Astrid tbh)   Gema To be hones I wouldn't be suprised if this dude's been on crack the whole time of this movie. He literally jokes about everything and is the "I don't give a fck" type of villain. I really liked him but I wasnt sad when they defeated him. he is I could say very well written.       Alus This little dude is seriously the best combination of Bianca and Luca. He looks like little Luca with Bianca's face. He got both of their happy go lucky side and cracks one joke after another. He is very stong and quick witted. Doesn't get easily scared and takes most of the things easy.         Flora Flora is very cute girl. Same as Bianca she is a mage but she is total opposite of her. She acts shy when it comes to Luca, but she also has strong sense for justice. When she finds out that Luca is in love with Bianca, she takes a form of an old witch and gives him potion that reveals his true feelings for Bianca and makes him realize what he wants even though she is in love with Luca.       MY OPINION: This story made me suprised a lot of times. Especially with Flora being the old woman and that the story was just a virtual game. If something like that existed it would be amazing! Just imagine going into virtual reality without knowing you are in it because your memories gets deleted for the time being you are in it. As I said before I liked all of the characters and I enjoyed it a lot! They could just end it with them turning into a stone and then make a second movie, but I'm glad they didn't milk it that much and instead focused on making a good movie. I wouldn't be suprised if the people working on it were fans of the game. I watched this in english dabing and I must say the voice actors did an amazing job!

mdchan Oct 12, 2022

4

...what did I just watch?  A comedy, right?  They were going for a comedy, I hope?  Or a parody?  But there's no tags for that...wait, they were serious with this movie?  They legit wanted the audience to take it seriously? Alright, so preface:  I never played Dragon Quest V, which this movie is based on.  I played the very first game (called "Dragon Warrior"), as well as VIII and XI.  So, I didn't know what to expect or what sort of story would be told.  Anyone who has played Dragon Quest V will be familiar with the story as well as its twists and turns. -- Story Shortly after he is born, Luka's mother is kidnapped by the evil wizard, Gema/Ladja, who is trying to open a portal to some evil dimension.  Luka travels with his father, Papasu/Pankraz, who suspects that Luka might be the prophecy-told Hero since he is of Zenithian descent. On their travels to one town, Prince Henry/Harry is kidnapped by minions of Gema/Ladja and it's up to the protagonists to save him...only, things don't go as planned. I had a really difficult time trying to summarize the story because it moves very quickly and has a good amount of time skips.  There are scenes which occur midway through the movie which I would have thought would have been at the end of the movie. A lot of things happen, and they happen quickly.  From a journey to an escape, to saving a village to...marriage!?  And childbirth!?...to breaking the 4th wall... I just couldn't take it seriously.  I had a good grasp of the plot up until a quarter or so into the movie as Luka went in search of the Hero Sword...then it just sort of went downhill and I gave up on trying to figure out what sort of story it was trying to tell. After that, I just sat back and enjoyed how hilariously stupid the entire thing was.  2/10 -- Characters They come and go faster than a revolving door.  One moment a character is relevant, and the next they're in the background (though at least Luka tends to be up front and center). Also, it's worth mentioning that the names are...strange.  I was watching it in the original Japanese with English subs, and was often puzzled by the fact that I could clearly hear the characters say a name on screen (like "Martha") and then look down and see the subtiltes show it as "Mada".  I guess those are the English translated names in the game itself or something; they do this with locations as well. Luka is your generic fantasy hero, though at least he shows a little bit of hesitance when he has to decide whether to go find that Hero Sword.  Otherwise, he just keeps pressing forward and is a good person at heart.  Simple, determined, and fairly strong.  He's also one of the only characters who did not have his name changed. Bianca is a girl who had helped Luka during his travels once when he was a child, and aided him in retrieving the Dragon Orb.  She is fiery and headstrong, and not afraid to speak her mind.  She does have a softer side to her and encourages Luka as well...I think she's a mage?  She has a two-handed staff and is once seen casting a spell or two... Also in their party are two monsters: the slime named Surarin/Gootrude, and the sabrecat named Geregere/Purrcy. Other characters come and go, including the arrogant prince Henry/Harry and a close friend of Luka's family, Sancho.  The bad guys remain as well, and are your generic "bad guys trying to open a portal for evil" who are really easy to hate. Some characters flew by quickly, and almost seemed to come and go so fast that I could only basically grasp their personality before they were regulated to the background.  Luka remained the centerpoint of the story thankfully, so we at least had one character to focus on. Luka was a good, solid character (if not a bit dull and predictable at times), but I can't say the same for the others.  Everyone was pretty much just comic relief even when they were trying to be serious.  They're lucky to scrape by a 3/10 because they did make me laugh at least...even if that's not what they were going for. -- Sound & Animation The sound was pretty good; some familiar sounding tunes...but there was one moment when the music was this high spirited adventure type music still playing even as Luka finds a town which looks like it had just been attacked.  That was a weird clash of footage to ambiance.  The voice acting was a little stiff here and there as well, and sometimes Luka came across as flat and uninteresting. It's not great, but it's not bad.  The final song was good and other music sounded fine even if it missed the mark on matching the mood occasionally.  6/10 The animation is what I have a big problem with.  The characters move so much, even when just talking, that they look fake.  The expressions are fine, but all of the excess movements of their bodies and arms when they just have a normal conversation with one another was awkward and made me very uncomfortable. I nearly wasn't able to watch the movie because of that, and just sort of grimaced whenever the characters had to talk to one another since they would do that odd bobbing of the head or their arms.  All the animators had to do was move around the expressions, but instead they had them move their entire bodies when speaking. I have difficulty reading body language, but I'm pretty sure normal people don't move like that when they just have a conversation with one another.  Whenever someone blushed, their entire face would turn red.  It was both hilarious and a bit off-putting at the same time. Battles were alright, I suppose.  Most of them were over so quickly that it was hard to rate in terms of animation, and the magic the characters used often obscured the view of the entire scene briefly.  Some of the CGI movement of the enemies were just as awkward as the humans. Honestly, I'd rather try to forget the awkward movements and motions which was the entire animation of the film.  Oh...the slime was done well, though.  3/10 -- Overall As a comedy, I think it did rather well.  It was so gosh darn stupid that I was laughing often enough...even at parts which weren't supposed to be funny, however. But the rest just completely crumbled and failed.  Scenes including death did not feel emotional enough to shed a single tear, and it doesn't take much to get me to cry during emotional scenes in media. The animation was awkward, the voice acting was weak, the subtitled names not matching the names the characters were saying in the Japanese version was confusing, and the pacing was so fast that there was almost no time to take a breath between scenes because something was always happening... ...yet, despite the film constantly moving along, the characters remained the same as they did when they were first introduced.  Nobody really grew as a character emotionally or physically except for a tiny scene here and there with Luka. And don't get me started on that final battle and plot twist.  That was just so ridiculous that I burst out in laughter...again.  I suppose it would have been a really cool thing to include if the movie was one to take more seriously, but considering it was a train wreck from a quarter of the way in until the finish...yea. Interesting concept, that final battle, but very poorly done.  Again, it was more on the "roflmao" side than the "omg wtf" side. I suppose if you're looking for a movie you can laugh at, or to listen to while you're doing busywork or something, this is a good movie to do so with.  It's one you most likely won't get super invested in or involved in, and is far more enjoyable if it isn't taken seriously. Since it amused me (though I'm still pretty sure that wasn't its intention) I'll give it a 4/10.