Just perfect...

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

"Dragon Ball: Episode of Bardock" is an animated short film from 2011, so this one had its 5th anniversary last year. The director is Yoshihiro Ueda and this was made by several writers, also from Japan, that I have never heard of. Voice actors will also be unknown outside of Asia I'm sure. The protagonist is Bardock, Goku's father, even if I must say he looks exactly the same to me. But this is probably just subjective as my eye is certainly not exactly trained when it comes to the Dragon ball universe and the title gives away instantly that this is where the story takes place. But judging from the Dragon Ball stuff I have see, these little purple creatures were a bit of an odd addition and while they could have worked in their own universe/movie, they did not really go well together with Dragon Ball. As for the story: Could have been better, could have been worse. It was nothing that would get me interested in watching any other episodes or short films or even movies from that franchise. But like I said: A lot of my dislike here also has to do with personal bias as the animation style and the DB concept have never interested me a lot. So this recent addition is only worth checking out for big fans. Everybody else can skip it.