TEN BILLION

The Dragon Ball Z movies tend to exist parallel to the established continuity of Akira Toriyama's manga. This sixth installment, Dragon Ball Z: Clash!! 10,000,000,000 Powerful Warriors, plays around with the idea of despotic alien enemies being returned to life as unbeatable mechanoids - a strand that was otherwise explored during the Androids / Cell Games arc.

Director Daisuke Nishio (Crying Freeman, 3x3 Eyes) stages a meta-clash for the ages. Goku and Frieza's older brother Cooler fight incessantly over a flooded wasteland, while a bleak, nuclear wind whistles around them. The framing and shot composition owe a surprising aesthetic debt to Spaghetti Westerns and the psychologically charged oaters that followed. Impact pops sound like processed macaroni pistols, while pose down interludes are littered with extreme close-ups of glowering eyes. There's even an advancing doom shot that quotes High Plains Drifter's heat haze nightmares.