At Kame House, Maron drops by hoping to reconcile with Krillin, who broke up with her in Episode 117.   She spent the entire Garlic Junior Saga claiming she had no idea how she felt about Krilin, but only now, three years after he dumped her, she realizes what she’s lost.

Of course, Krillin’s not here, because he’s helping Goku fight Gero’s androids.    But Maron doesn’t understand that, so Roshi tries to explain the entire story of the Red Ribbon Army.  

Now, this episode is memorable to me because in 2000, this extended flashback was all I had to go by as far as what this “Red Ribbon Army” thing was.    Not long after, Toonami started airing the original RRA sagas on Cartoon Network, but at the time, this was it for American fans.  

Famously, the dub made some mistakes in recapping the arc.    Mainly, they refer to Tao Pai Pai as a Red Ribbon General and the surpreme leader of the RRA.    In fact, he was a mercenary hired by Commander Red.   I can’t really blame Funimation for messing that up, though, because at least a third of this montage is Goku fighting Tao, and there was zero voice over during that part of it.   It’s also possible that Funimation was still confused from having dubbed Dragon Ball Movie 3, “Mystical Adventure”.  In that movie, Tao really was a general, but that was an AU where he served in the Mifan Imperial Army, not the Red Ribbon.  

Watchng this in Japanese, I find the whole flashback kind of empty and pointless.    I’m sure Toei only included this for filler purposes, but it probably wasn’t a bad idea to bring the audience up to speed, since the RRA saga ended about four years before this episode aired.   But if you’re going to do that, then maybe at least include a voice over of someone telling the story.  Don’t just show Goku fighting Tao without any explanation.   

What bugs me about this mostly narration-free montage is that it really doesn’t explain anything about them. Most of it is footage of Goku fighting Sgt. Metallic, Tao Pai Pai, and Staff Officer Black.    You’d think they’d want to at least spend some time on Generals Blue and White, and Commander Red.  Of course, not even Master Roshi knows a lot of these details, since he wasn’t there for most of it.  I was about to say that Roshi should have told Maron about how Red only wanted the Dragon Balls to wish himself taller, but Roshi never knew about that.   Only Red and Black knew, and they’re both dead. 

At any rate, the montage has almost no narration at all, so the only real story you get from the Japanese version is that there was an evil army trying to take over the world, and Goku beat them all.   Which is fine, except that’s basically all we heard when Trunks and Goku talked about the RRA back in Episode 122.   This flashback provides no substantial information beyond that, and yet it lasts a full five minutes. 

Then Roshi gets to the part where Dr. Gero went into hiding and built the Androids, only to be destroyed by his own creations.   This is also a flashback to the images shown when Trunks explained all of this in Episode 122.   This also marks the second time this anime has depicted Gero’s death.   I’m keeping a talley, because I feel like “Androids turning on Dr. Gero” is one of the moments that gets re-presented a lot in DBZ.   

Of course, Maron doesn’t follow any of this, so the whole story is wasted on her. 

Back at the plot, Goku is still clubberin’ 19 at will.    This whole fight appears to be a complete mismatch. 

Even #20 is beginning to realize that Goku’s Super Saiyan form is more powerful than his calculations.

Yamcha, Krillin, and Gohan arrive, and Tien assures them that Goku has this situation under control.   Tien, Yamcha, and Krillin are all amazed to see Super Saiyan Goku in action, but Gohan and Piccolo experienced his power on Namek, and they’re not so convinced.   As impressive as Goku might seem, they know he’s capable of much more, and yet he seems to be struggling. 

Worse, none of Goku’s offense has slowed 19 down.  

So Goku launches a Kamehameha to finish 19 off, only he calmly raises his hand and absorbs the entire blast.  

For some reason, the others choose now to warn Goku about the Androids being able to absorb ki. 

Then 19 starts his counterattack.  

The story begins with Emperor Pilaf and his crew putting the finishing touches on a big-screen Dragon Radar for the Crane Hermit, Mercenary Tao, and Tien Shinhan.    They’re pleased with the work, and Tao steps forward to give them their reward.

We don’t actually get to see what Tao does to them, because the whole scene fades to white and gets sucked into the Phantom Zone, but it’s strongly implied that he killed them, or at least didn’t pay them for their work.    So there’s even some elements from the King Piccolo Saga in this movie along with the rest.

As the opening theme song plays, we see a montage of Goku and Krillin training under the Turtle Hermit.   This is the first time I’ve watched all three of these movies in order, and I never fully appreciated how they fit together to make a nice little trilogy.  

No pain, no gain, boys.

Hooray, the opening credits!  It’s fun!

Roshi does the whole bit where he explains that he doesn’t have anything else to teach the boys, since their training regimen included all the fundamentals of the Turtle School.   As a reward for their progress, he plans to take them to a big martial arts Tournament, but it’s not the Tenkaichi Budokai in Papaya Island.   No, instead he’s taking them to the imperial tournament hosted by the Mifan Empire.

Meanwhile, things are not well in the Mifan Empire, as the Emperor has lost his bride, Ran Ran, and the military has been searching high and low for her.

They stop a truck and search it, and when the driver gets upset about it, the leader of the soldiers, Blue, paralyzes him with his psychic powers and kicks his ass.   I’m not sure if Blue is a General in this story, but he’s part of the Mifan Army, not the Red Ribbon.  

Likewise, the Mifan Empire is run by characters from the Crane Hermit School.    Chiaotzu is the Emperor, and apparently a child in this story.   Tien is... well, I’m not sure exactly.   I want to say he’s a high-ranking security guard or something, but it’s never spelled out.

The Crane Hermit is called “Minister”, and since he seems to be the most important one, I assume he’s the Prime Minister.   I’ll be calling him “Minister Shen” from here on, since I don’t think they ever gave him a name in this movie, and he’s definitely not a Hermit.  “Shen” is a dub-ism, I’m pretty sure, but I’ll run with it.

Shen reveals the Dragon Radar to the Emperor, which looks a whole lot fancier since Pilaf last worked on it.    Also, how did he install that monstrosity in the ceiling without the Emperor knowing about it?    Anyway, he explains that if they collect the seven Dragon Balls, Chiaotzu can ask Shenron to find Ran Ran, and that’ll solve everything.   All Shen needs is the Emperor’s permission to devote imperial resources to the task.

But then Blue walks in, and suggests that Shen may have other plans for the Dragon Balls.   His men have searched the whole city for Ran Ran, except Minister Shen’s room, which seems awful fishy to him.  

At this point, Tao enters the scene and says that any accusation against Shen must be an accusation against him as well.Then they fight, and Tao kills Blue with his tongue, just like he did in the Commander Red Saga.

Okay, so this is a good time to talk about the double-edged sword of this movie’s concept.   This whole scene in the throne room, from the Dragon Radar to Blue’s death, is like two and a half minutes, tops.   Tao killing Blue with his tongue is awesome, sure, but in this movie it doesn’t really hold up as well because:

We’ve seen it before.

We barely got to know Blue before this happened.   Is he a good guy in this story?   I’m not sure.

Why is Tao only using his tongue?  In the TV series he did it to prove a point.   Here, there’s no context.   He just does it because he did it in the TV series and it was cool there.

Why is Chiaotzu just letting these guys fight in the middle of his court?  A minute ago Shen seemed to think it was important to get the Emperor’s permission to carry out his plan, but now they’re just doing whatever they want right in front of him.

I don’t want to complain too much, because this is a really cool scene, but I feel like it would have been helped if it had been expanded a little, or  maybe if Blue hadn’t been involved.   I think it would have been sufficient to have Tao and Shen share a sinister chuckle when Chiaotzu approved their plan.   We didn’t need Blue to run in and blurt out “HEY I THINK THESE GUYS ARE EVIL OH CRAP I’M DEAD!”    It’s like they really wanted Blue in the movie, but only so he could die to Tao.  

Meanwhile, Bulma’s out hunting Dragon Balls with Oolong, Puar, and Yamcha.  She told them that it was to find Goku, and I’m not really sure why that would work, since he doesn’t have any of the Dragon Balls at this time.   Turns out, she just wants to make a wish.   Unfortunately, some Mifan aircraft shoot at her when she gets too close to the Dragon Ball, and she has to shoot back.

Bulma takes out like four of these Mifanese planes.   I seem to remember she shot at some Gurumesian soldiers in Curse of the Blood Rubies, but I’m not sure that she hit any of them.   At any rate, this is probably the most kills by Bulma in any Dragon Ball media. 

She converts her aircraft into a submarine and goes after the Dragon Ball, but the Mifan Empire has a submarine of their own, and Bulma finds herself outgunned, so she has to withdraw.

Meanwhile, Roshi’s group is on their way to the Mifan for the tournament.   Launch wants to hijack the plane.   Okay, but what would she do if she did hijack it?   “Take this plane to Mifan, if ya know what’s good for ya!”  “Um, ma’am, that’s where we were already going.”   “Yeah, but take us there while I got a gun on ya.   It helps me relax!”

In the Land of Korin, the Mifan Empire has forced a bunch of locals to dig up the countryside in search of the Dragon Ball they detected in the region.   Turns out that Bora and Upa have it with them, but they don’t dare turn it over becaue they’ve heard that the Mifan soldiers will kill all the workers once they find it.   So this is all kind of a callback to Android 8 hiding the Dragon Ball from General White to save Jingle Village.  

Instead, Bora decides to travel to Mifan in the hopes of straightening things out there.   That’s surprisingly proactive of Bora.    I wouldn’t say it’s out of character for him, but I’m used to seeing him as a defender of this particular land.   It’s weird that the Mifan army has invaded and the first thing he’s gonna do is leave and take the fight to their backyard.

As it turns out, the Mifan Empire has already gathered six of the Dragon Balls, so the one in Korin is the only one they need.   For some reason, Shen keeps them all in this statue-looking thing.

As he and Tao discuss their plans, they get word that the 7th Dragon Ball is moving towards Mifan as they speak.   That doesn’t make sense, though, because their men in Korin haven’t found it yet.   Uh-oh.

What they’re actually detecting, of course, is Bora trying to sneak into Mifan with the Dragon Ball, but he didn’t know about their radar, so by taking the Dragon Ball along, he’s basically announcing his presence.

As they consider this, they notice a robot drone spying on them from the window.   Maybe I’m just getting old, but its weird how robot drones are a real thing you can buy at the store.   The only thing science-fictiony about Bulma spying on them like this is that she built a Dragon Radar into the drone to find them, and she doesn’t have to worry about pesky FAA regulations.   So yeah, even Droney makes a cameo in this movie.  They really went nuts stacking this film with stuff from the anime.

So now Bulma wants to go to Mifan and steal the Dragon Balls from Shen and Tao to get back at them for attacking her earlier.  Yamcha’s up for it because there’s a cool tournament there.  Oolong’s out, until Bulma tells him there’s pretty girls in Mifan.    Okay, yeah, but aren’t there pretty girls in West City, where they currently are?   Hell, there’s a pretty girl in the same room as Oolong, and he’s just playing cards like she isn’t even there.   But Oolong’s all excited to see hotttt Mifan babes anyway.

Roshi’s group arrives in Mifan and has dinner in a restaurant, when Bora moonwalks into the same place.  Okay, so first of all, he looks awesome in that poncho and hat.   Second, why is he sneaking around?    As far as he knows, no one would suspect him of anything.   Well, it’s a cool screencap, however we got there.    I’m just enjoying it, like that guy in the green shirt on the right.  

He pays for his and Upa’s meal with a nugget of gold he has with him.   I’m not used to seeing Bora spending money either.    This is a very different side of the character.   I don’t know that they’re really taking liberties with the guy, it’s just that he’s doing things that he never got the chance to do in the original story.

Suddenly there’s a bunch of sirens.   Launch panics until she remembers that she hasn’t done any crimes here...............................yet.  

Turns out they’re here for Bora, although I’m not quite sure how they knew to look for him in particular.   Mifan’s Dragon Radar wouldn’t be precise enough to pinpoint his location, or they would have found Bora’s Dragon Ball back in Korin a long time ago.   Maybe they knew to look for someone dressed like a resident of Korin, but I don’t know if Bora really stands out in that regard.    Anyway, there’s a struggle, and one of the soldiers bumps into Goku, so he gets rowdy.

So Sergeant Metallic shows up to straighten things out.   They fight for a while, and then Tao shows up.

Things look pretty dicey here, since this looks exactly like the moment when Tao killed Bora in the TV show, but...

Roshi intervenes by explaining that they’re all special guests of the Mifan Emperor, a status bestowed upon anyone who enters the tournament.   I’m pretty sure Bora had no intention of entering the tourney, but he does now, since it gives him diplomatic immunity, at least for a little while longer.   Too bad Blue didn’t enter this year...

Here’s a cool shot of Launch.

They all compare notes, and Roshi explains that if you win the tournament, you get to ask a favor from the Emperor.   So the plan is for one of the guys in this room to win, and ask Chiaotzu to put a stop to whatever Shen is up to.   I’m not sure that would work, and if it would work, I’m not sure they need to go to that much trouble to get an audience, but okay.

That night, Emperor Chiatozu has a nightmare, and his best pal Tien comforts him.   Note that Tien was in the opening scene of the movie, so he’s definitely in cahoots with Shen and Tao.   I feel like that sort of got lost in the shuffle with everything else that’s been happening.

Tien even taught him how to do telepathy, so that just proves that he has a soft spot for the Emperor.

The next day, Bulma’s group runs into Roshi’s group.   She’s learned that all seven Dragon Balls are together in Mifan, and she plans to steal the six that are held in the palace.   This is awful brave of Bulma, considerng how she didn’t want any part of the Red Ribbon Army, but all right.

What does she even plan to wish for?   Anyway, she recruits Launch to help her in the caper.

Also Yamcha’s here.

When the tournament finally starts, Yamcha is the first contestant, and his first opponent is Anton the Great, one of the jobbers from the preliminary matches in the 22nd Budokai arc.  

Yamcha clearly busts out the Wolf Fang Fist to beat him...

Except he ends up kicking the guy instead.   I feel like someone doesn’t understand what the Wolf Fang Fist is supposed to be.    It might be be, I’ll admit it, but it sure seems like there’s no rule to the move.   Yamcha just shouts “Roga fu-fu-ken!” and there’s some wolf images and then he just does whatever he was doing before, only it’s supposed to work better.   In the video games, it’s always rapid-fire strikes.

We don’t get a lot of time to learn how this Mifan Tournament works, but it seems to be a gauntlet-style match.   As soon as Anton is eliminated, Bora jumps in the ring and Yamcha has to fight him next.

Yamcha seems to do okay...

Until Master Roshi distracts him, costing Yamcha the match.   This is so Bora can win and receive his favor from the emperor.  

Apparently, the other fighters are so impressed with Bora’s performance that they run away rather than face him.   This just leaves Goku and Krillin, which works out great, since they all want the same thing from Chiaotzu.   But then...

Tao decides to enter himself, and when Bora refuses to tell where he’s hidden the Dragon Ball, he kills him.

Ouch.   I’m not sure why they would build a statue so big and sharp, but there it is.   

Now, while all of this is going on, Bulma is making her move to get the other six Dragon Balls.   First, she has Puar shape-shift into Emperor CHiaotzu.   Ha ha, that’s adorable!  

Then she has Oolong tun into Minister Shen.   Pretty close, but needs improvement.

The idea is to just stroll right into the palace, since know one would dare stop the Emperor, but then a couple of nobles ask a few too many innocent questions, so Launch mugs them.

Was this one of the pretty girls Oolong came to see?   I think this is the only woman we’ve seen in town since they got here. 

Goku tries to avenge Bora, but he gets clobbered.   Even the Kamehameha is useless against Tao, who responds with a Dodon Ray.  Unlike the TV version of this fight, Goku gets carried away by the blast, which sends him out of the city.

And into... Korin Tower?   Hell of a coincidence.

Back at the arena, Shen decides that there’s no longer any need to conceal his motives, and explains to Chiaotzu that he’s taking over the Empire and using the Dragon Balls to conquer the rest of the world too.  

Unfortunately, they still can’t find the seventh ball, because Goku was carryng it when Tao shot him with the Dodon Ray.  

Also, Bulma’s trying to steal the other six...

At Korin Tower, Korin doesn’t have time to teach Goku all the stuff that helped him beat Tao in the TV show, so we get a condensed lesson instead.   He drops Goku’s Dragon Ball in a pot of water, and Goku can’t see it at first because the water is moving.    When it settles, he can see the bottom clearly.   Similarly, Goku failed against Tao because he was blinded by his own anger at Bora’s death.    The key to beating his enemy is to calm his heart, which will allow him to see his enemy clearly.    

Turns out that Tao is already on his way to find Goku, so he’d better calm his heart quickly if he wants to stand a chance.

So Goku hops on Kinto Un to face him.   This is the first time we’ve seen Kinto Un in this movie, so I feel kind of bad for anyone who started watching Dragon Ball with this movie.   It’s just not a good introduction at all.   Launch never sneezes, and there’s just way too much stuff happening all at once.   You’ll get to see a lot of characters, but you don’t get to fully experience all of them, or learn about why they do what they do.  

Back in Mifan, Shen thwarts Bulma’s Dragon Ball heist, and Launch actually manages to shoot some bad guys and actually kill them for once.   Unfortunately, her bullets still don’t work on Shen.

And they end up losing the Dragon Balls in a fissue at the bottom of the ocean.   Whoops.

Roshi and Krillin try to fight, but Tien knocks out Roshi with that knee strike he used on Jackie Chun at the 22nd Budokai.  

So that about wraps things up.    The Dragon Balls may be lost, but Shen can stil take over Mifan, so he orders Tien to kill Emperor Chiaotzu so he can cement his power.

Meanwhile, in Penguin Village, Arale intercepts Tao and messes with him until Goku shows up.

Tao shoots a Dodon Ray at Arale,but it doesn’t hurt her at all, much to Goku’s amazement.

Also the Ga-chan’s zap him, but I don’t know enough about Dr. Slump to know what that would do to him.

This whole part of the movie is nuuuuuuuuuuts.   I don’t mind seeing Arale pop in, but pitting Tao against her and the Ga-chans and Goku is a bit much.   I think it’s safe to call Tao the main villain of the movie, but he can’t even get any traction in this final battle.   At one point, the Ga-chans tie his hair to a tree as a prank.   They just make him look like a total chump, which is humorous, but I’m not sure it was the best thing to do with this movie.

So Tao tries the ol’ fake apology trick, except he can’t quite do what he did in the TV show because he needs to get the Dragon Ball and escape to Mifan.   So instead of a grenade, he whips out a little hovercraft, grabs the Dragon Ball, and shoots missiles when he’s far enough away.   But the result is the same.

Back at Mifan, Tien tries to explain to Chiaotzu that he’s betraying him, but Chiaotzu just can’t accept that.

He starts crying, and Tien just can’t resist those beady eyes.

Shen is livid, so he tries to kill the Emperor himself.    Also around here, Master Roshi wakes up from Tien’s kick and gives him that line about how his abilities are crying out for Tien to do the right thing.   Okay, but that line worked better in the original story because we had seen Tien’s abilities.    In this movie, all he’s done so far is kick Roshi in the back of the head, and Roshi got up from it almost immediately. 

Likewise, it’s not really clear what Tien’s obligation to Shen is supposed to be.   In the original version, Shen taught him how to fight.   Here, I don’t even known what Tien’s position is.     

Really, all we need is what we’ve gotten from the movie itself.    Tien was shown to be in league with Shen and Tao’s plot, but he’s also very close to Emperor Chiaotzu, and when push comes to shove his friendship with Chiaotzu is more important than his political ambitions.    We don’t need callbacks to his dilemma from the 22nd Budokai, because this is a completely different dilemma.  

So Shen tries to use a Dodon Ray on Chiaotzu, but Tien whips out the Ki Ko Ho first and blows Shen away.

In the movie, the Ki Ko Ho is blue for some reason.  

So that fixes everything except for Sergeant Metallic, who had been trying to hold Upa hostage, except everyone kept ignoring him.   Now that he has no other cards to play, he tries to kill Upa, but then Goku returns and dives right through his body, which shuts him down once and for all. 

The guards who were helping Shen immediately bow before Chiaotzu, and he forgives them.   That’s nice and all, but I can’t help but wonder if this lax attitude is how the first coup got rolling.

Then Tien hands Chiaotzu a doll, which is apparently Ran Ran.   Tien admits that he had been hiding it this whole time, in order to get Chiaotzu to agree to the Dragon Ball search.   So Chiaotzu’s “bride” was a doll the whole time?   How old is Chiaotzu supposed to be in this movie?  Five?  Anyway, he forgives Tien too, so that takes care of that.

Oh, hey, Bulma and Yamcha survived falling into the ocean.   Good for them.

The only loose end now is Bora’s death.   Goku plans to revive him with the Dragon Balls, except six of them are now out of reach. 

So Goku tosses the seventh ball in with the rest of them, and summons Shenron that way.   Okay, but we’re kind of running short on time, aren’t we?

And, yeah, this movie was so jam packed with content that they had to wish Bora back to life during the end credits.   I can’t really complain, since making wishes on the Dragon Balls has gotten pretty routine by now, so all we really need is a shot of Shenron and a shot of Bora waking up.   Still, it just goes to show that they really loaded this movie up for bear, and sometimes that works against it.