Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone (1989)
1989 film by Daisuke Nishio
- Released
- 1989
- Country
- Japan
- Language
- Japanese
- Genre
- Martial arts film
- Director
- Daisuke Nishio
- Screenplay
- Takao Koyama
- Music
- Shunsuke Kikuchi
- Cinematography
- Motoaki Ikegami
- Editing
- Shinichi Fukumitsu
- Running time
- 41 minutes
- Production company
- Toei Animation
- Distributor
- Toei Company
- Box office
- ¥2000 million
- Based on
- Dragon Ball
Dragon Ball Z: Dead Zone is a 1989 Japanese anime fantasy martial arts film, the fourth installment in the Dragon Ball film series, and the first under the Dragon Ball Z moniker. It was originally released in Japan on July 15 at the "Toei Manga Matsuri" film festival along with the 1989 film version of Himitsu no Akko-chan, the first Akuma-kun film, and the film version of Kidou Keiji Jiban. It was preceded by Dragon Ball: Mystical Adventure and followed by Dragon Ball Z: The World's Strongest.
Despite continuity inconsistencies, Dead Zone acts as a prelude to the Dragon Ball Z television series and is the only film to get a follow-up within the series, that being the Garlic Jr. arc which takes place between Frieza and Android arcs. The canonicity of this arc is debated as it does not appear in the original manga.
External links
Facts from Wikidata Q475559 (CC0); quoted introduction from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0). Data retrieved 2026-10-22.
Data: Wikidata (CC0 1.0); Wikipedia (English) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Retrieved 2026-10-22.