Fullmetal Alchemist (2017 Film)

Produced by Warner Brothers Pictures Japan and directed by Fumihiko Sori, this feature adapts the source manga into live action with Hiromu Arakawa credited on the writing. A high-profile cast anchors it, including Ryosuke Yamada as Edward Elric, Tsubasa Honda as Winry Rockbell, Dean Fujioka as Roy Mustang, and Yasuko Matsuyuki as Lust. The singer MISIA performs the film's theme.

The tale plays out in an early twentieth-century world where alchemy is a respected and highly developed science. Brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric pay a terrible price for attempting the forbidden art of human transmutation: Alphonse loses his whole body while Edward loses a leg, and Edward then surrenders an arm to bind his brother's soul to a suit of armor. Fitted with mechanical automail limbs and taken into the State Alchemists under the title of Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward joins Alphonse in chasing the legendary Philosopher's Stone that might restore what they lost.

This retelling reshapes several threads from the source. The looming Promised Day scheme is set aside in favor of General Hakuro's plot to seize the country with mannequin soldiers, and Winry Rockbell rides along as a constant companion rather than staying home. Reole unfolds differently, with Edward chasing Cornello through the streets and Mustang burning the priest's fake stone, while Scar and Rose Thomas are dropped entirely. Shou Tucker gains a larger role, experimenting on Alphonse and later taking hostages, and Lust meets her end when Mustang tears out her stone.

Principal photography took place in Italy and Japan across the summer of 2016. The picture premiered as the opening film of the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2017, screened as the closing film of the first Anime NYC convention that November, and reached Japanese theaters that December before Netflix added it to its February 2018 lineup for streaming.

Beyond its plot changes, the movie tweaks a number of smaller details from the manga. The circle used for human transmutation carries a fresh design, the Ouroboros mark on the Homunculi appears in black rather than red, and Mustang gains the ability to pour out a steady stream of fire instead of short bursts. It also invents a claim, spoken by Mustang, that a genuine Philosopher's Stone cannot be destroyed, a rule found nowhere in the manga or either animated series.