Netflix's Wish Dragon Trailer Looks a Lot Like Aladdin Ball Z

Finding a wish-granting dragon in a teapot seems a lot easier than summoning a wish-granting dragon by collecting seven Dragon Balls. Or so it seems in Wish Dragon, a new animated movie from Netflix about a young man who stumbles upon his own extremely genie-esque dragon. Wish Dragon is the first film for the newly formed Base Animation studio, located in Xiamen, China, and Jackie Chan's Sparkle Roll Media. I've spent the last hour researching whether there's any mythological basis for the film's conceit that Chinese dragons grant wishes and/or live in teapots, and all I can find is that in Buddhism, some dragons can have pearls under their chins that can grant a wish if they're obtained. So Wish Dragon does seem to take the "Dragons grant wishes" premise of the long-running action anime Dragon Ball and then stuffs it deep in Disney's 1992 hit animated musical Aladdin. The titular Wish Dragon turns from bombastic to wacky at the drop of a dime, much like Robin Williams' Genie in Aladdin; Netflix's movie also uses Aladdin's "Phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space" gag when the Wish Dragon returns to his teapot, complete with a high-pitched voice. The trailer makes it appear that Din's only in it for friendship, but if it turns out he has romantic feelings for Lina, it's going to be even more Aladdin-y. None of this is necessarily a bad thing, of course, and given that Netflix's last animated movie was the phenomenal The Mitchells Vs. the Machines, it's worth giving Wish Dragon the benefit of the doubt.