One Piece Film: Gold

One Piece Film: Gold is a 2016 Japanese animated fantasy action adventure film directed by Hiroaki Miyamoto and produced by Toei Animation. The film is part of the One Piece film series, based on the manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It had its world premiere at the Emirates Palace hotel in Abu Dhabi on July 15, 2016, and later premiered in Japan on July 23, 2016. On October 5, 2016, Funimation announced that they acquired the rights to screen the film in the United States and Canada on January 10–17, 2017.

Plot

The Straw Hat Pirates arrive at Gran Tesoro, a ship which is an entertainment city and independent nation ruled by Gild Tesoro. The concierge Baccarat gives the Straw Hats a VIP stay due to their fame, and lends them large sums of money with which to begin gambling. They participate in games where they win a lot of money. Baccarat then takes them to the VIP lounge to meet Tesoro, who challenges them to a dice game.

However, Baccarat uses her Devil Fruit abilities to strip Luffy of his luck, causing him to lose. She reveals her foul play and demands the Straw Hats repay the money they lost. Since the money was loaned from Gran Tesoro, the Straw Hats cannot afford to repay it, causing them to fight Baccarat, Tesoro, and his subordinates Mr. Tanaka and Dice. They are overwhelmed, and Tesoro, who can manipulate gold, captures Zoro; it turns out that the gold dust which fell on the crew like snow when entering Gran Tesoro is used to place everyone under the power of Gild Tesoro so that they must do his bidding. Tesoro gives the Straw Hats until midnight the next day to repay their debt or he will execute Zoro. Outside, the Straw Hats run into Carina, a former acquaintance of Nami who is now working for Tesoro.

They hatch a plan with Carina to steal Tesoro's fortune from a hotel vault, and find out that most people in the city are enslaved to Tesoro. The next day, the Straw Hats split up into two teams and infiltrate the hotel. Luffy and Franky scale it from the outside in order to disable its surveillance network, but are caught by security. Tesoro binds Luffy's arms in gold, and Mr. Tanaka sends them plummeting into the Golden Prison, a large cavern filled with nothing but gold.

Luffy and Franky make their way through a pipe system to get to a pump room with seawater that can wash the gold off Luffy. Meanwhile, the rest of the Straw Hats and Carina sneak into the supposed treasure room, only to find themselves on a stage as part of a trap laid by Tesoro. Tesoro reveals that he knows where Luffy and Franky are and attempts to drown them by flooding their location with seawater. He then attempts to execute Zoro, but when trying to release liquid gold from Gran Tesoro's fountains, seawater comes out instead.

The Straw Hats reveals that they had intended for all of this to happen in order for the seawater to be released and free everyone from Tesoro's control. Gran Tesoro's citizens and prisoners rise up against Tesoro and his crew. Marine forces then attack Gran Tesoro.

The Straw Hats defeat Baccarat, Tanaka and Dice, and Luffy uses Gear Four to defeat Tesoro, sending him flying into the Marine fleet where he is arrested. Gran Tesoro then appears to go into a self-destruct sequence. Carina volunteers to stay behind and steer the ship away while everyone else evacuates. After the Straw Hats depart, they realize the protocol was merely a fireworks countdown, and Carina has stolen the entire ship. As the Straw Hats are chased by the Marine fleet, Carina sails Gran Tesoro into the distance.

Voice cast

Production

Music and soundtrack

The film score was composed by Yuki Hayashi and the film's theme song is "Ikari o Kure yo" (怒りをくれよ) by Glim Spanky. As a fan of the band, Eiichiro Oda personally requested that they provide the theme. The film's staff asked the group to write something different than what would typically be associated with One Piece and to evoke the feeling of "battling Luffy." The first song they brought was not what the staff had in mind and they were suggested to write something more "unrefined" and "Iggy Pop-ish", to which Glim Spanky responded with "Ikari o Kure yo".

Release

The film was released in Japan on July 23, 2016 by its distributor Toei Company, on 739 screens in 344 theatres across the country.

The Blu-ray was released on December 28, 2016, in Japan and was released on 7 April 2017 in Germany, and 2 May 2017 in the U.S.

Selecta Visión released the film in Spain and Portugal on DVD and Blu-ray on 12 April 2017, featuring Japanese, Spanish and Catalan audio, as well as subtitles in Spanish, Catalan and Portuguese. Previously, the film had been premiered in theaters in Spain on 4 November 2016, dubbed in Spanish and Catalan. It was the first One Piece film to be released in cinemas in Spain.

Marketing

Reception

Box office

The film grossed $10.9 million on its opening weekend in Japan. It earned ¥1,516,450,600 from the 1,088,166 ticket sales in its first four days. It grossed $35.6 million by August 16, 2016. It grossed over ¥5 billion ($48.8 million) in Japan by early September 2016. By the end of 2016, it had grossed ¥5.18 billion in Japan, and was one of the year's top five highest-grossing domestic films.

In China, it grossed the biggest three-day total (CN¥105.5 million) in China of any Japanese film for 2016, up until the release of Your Name. Film: Gold went on to gross CN¥107 million ($16,103,544) in China. The film also grossed ₩1,710,761,100 ($1,495,486) in South Korea, and $423,593 in the United States and Canada. The worldwide total box office is about $70.84 million.

Critical reception

On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 67%, based on 9 reviews, and an average rating of 6.2/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 43 out of 100, based on 4 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Home media

The film was released in Japan in standard and limited edition DVD and Blu-ray formats on December 28, 2016. The limited edition "Golden Limited Edition" contains with interview of Eiichiro Oda, making of and application card for event, TV spot, trailer, and much more. Comes with golden earphones, a pen, Gran Tesoro Adventure original board game, golden casino-chip menko cards, and an unreleased press material. By the end of the year in Japan, the movie Gold had sold approximately 79,932 copies of DVDs and Blu-rays.

Koch Media released the film in Italy on DVD and Blu-ray on April 6, 2017. Selecta Visión released the film in Spain on DVD and Blu-ray on 12 April 2017, featuring Japanese, Spanish and Catalan audio, also with subtitles in Spanish and Catalan. On April 17, 2017 Kazé Anime launched Germany two versions of the home video, the Standard Edition Blu-ray/DVD and the Limited Deluxe Edition. In North America, Funimation released the film on DVD and Blu-ray on May 2, 2017.