The first of the ‘Dragonball Z’ movies, and a kind of middle of the road entry in my opinion.

The plot revolves around a mysterious character called ‘Garlic Jr.’ who is attempting to gather the dragonballs in order to wish for immortality, and with it, the ability to take over the world. Goku and the gang end up running into Garlic Jr.s Cronies while they’re hunting the final dragonballs, and all of this leads to a fairly epic showdown with the ultimate fate being a one way trip to ‘The Dead Zone’.

At 40(ish) minutes in length, this plays out almost like a 2 part story from the series. In that sense, theres a distinctly ‘filler-ish’ vibe to this one. I enjoyed it for what it was trying to do, but I wasnt particularly ‘wowd’ by it. Elements of this story would be reworked into the mainline dragonball Z anime as its own arc, and I feel this film handles the plotting better than that arc. But this isnt exactly a ‘must see’ movie for this series…Its a fun enough way to kill 40 minutes. But i’ve definitely seen better.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/dragon-ball-z-dead-zone/