Chi-Chi

Chi-Chi would be an upcoming adventure drama film written and directed by Dean DeBlois and Andrew Stanton, and based on the Japanese franchise Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama. An entry of the Dragon Ball Live-action Universe (DBLU), the film would be produced by DeBlois, Stanton, Kevin Feige, and Toriyama, and would star Gemma Chan, Daniel Padilla, Tom Harry, and the voices of Mena Massoud and Christopher Sabat. The film's score would be composed by Danny Elfman.

The film would met with critical acclaim upon release, with critics praising its emotional story, performances (particularly Chan's), direction, screenplay, visual effects, and score. The film would also be a commercial success, earning 1.2 billion dollars at the box office over a budget of 150 million dollars. The film would earn Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Visual Effects, as well as a Golden Globe for Best Film.

Synopsis
Set months after Kid Buu's defeat, everything seemed to go smoothly on Earthm with Chi-Chi particularly happy that her husband is alive once agin and that both of her sons are alive and well. However, her happiness vanishes once Gohan reveals that he plans to propose marriage to his girlfriend, Bidel, a decision that Chi-Chi stubornly refuses upon learning that her son plans to leave the house once married. As if that weren't enough, an old ally of her son's, the Galactic Patrolman Jaco, comes in and requests his help in capturing a dangerous criminal known as Watagash, who recently escaped from prision. Refusing to let her son risk his life again, Chi-Chi interferes with the mission, and tries to do anything to avoid her son from getting hurt. However, with the world at stake and having no other choice, Chi-Chi must accept that she has to do the hardest thing she has ever done: letting Gohan go.

Cast

 * Gemma Chan as Chi-Chi: A hot-headed woman, the wife of Goku, and the mother of Gohan and Goten, who refuses to let her older son go. Chan would say that "the film allows Chi-Chi to grow and become her own character while still keeping what she is known for", and that fans "will become a lot more sympathetic with her" after watching the movie. Co-director De DeBlois would say that "[he and Stanton] took that over-protective nature that characterizes her, and used to create a story that gives her some development and to tell a touching story that parents can relate to".
 * Daniel Padilla as Gohan / The Great Saiyaman, a warrior and defender of Earth, who is Chi-Chi and Goku's son and Goten's brother. Producer Akira Toriyama would say that "while parents connect with Chi-Chi's over-protectiveness, teens connect with Gohan's desire to leave the nest and fly".
 * Tom Hardy as Otōsan, an over-protective parent who is swayed into becoming Watagash's host. Toriyama would explain that the filmmakers choose to create Otōsan over using Dragon Ball Super character Barry Khan because "they wanted to give Watagash a host that could be Chi-Chi's foil".

Voice cast

 * Mena Massoud as Jaco, a Galactic Patrolman and a friend of Gohan's, who requests his help to stop Watagash. According to Massoud, Jaco would serve as "Chi-Chi's little friend and never-listened Jiminy Cricket". As in previous films, Massoud wuld provide both the voice and motion-capture performance for the character.
 * Christopher Sabat as Watagash, a parasatic criminal who, upon escaping from prision, controls Otōsan to spread his mind control all over Earth. Sabat would reprise his role from Jaco: Time Patroller. Sabat would describe him as "more angry and determined" than in Time Patroller.

Music
Danny Elfman would compose the film's score. As with previous DBLU films, the film would feature motifs and elements written by Shunsuke Kikuchi for the Dragon Ball anime series, as well as Pinar Toprak's themes for Jaco and Watagash from the Jaco films, and his theme for Gohan from Gohan: The Great Saiyaman. According to executive music producer John Powell, this would be in order to create "music continuty" between the films. Elfman's theme for Chi-Chi would be "agressive, motherly, and overreactive" to represent the character0s personality, while he would reconfigure his theme for Gohan from The Great Saiyaman in order to "showcase his feelings of wanting to leave and grow".

Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film would have an approval rating of 95%, with an average rating of 8/10, based on 276 reviews. The film's critical consensus would read, "Another heartwarming experience, the DBLU proves it still has a few miles left by delivering another story that contains the cinematic franchise's now-signatures heart, great direction, character-driven story and emotionally touching tale". On Metacritic, the film would have a weigthed rating of 81 out of 100, based on 48 reviews, ndicating "generally positive reviews".

Trivia

 * According to producer Kevin Feige, Stanton and DeBlois would be hired as writers and directors due to their respective works on Finding Nemo (2003) and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (2019), which he and Toriyama would feel "perfectly captured the idea and message of letting go that this film tries to sent".