The All-Japanese Cast behind the Live Action Film of Fullmetal Alchemist is Explained

To all those who have had their fair share of questions for the cast of the upcoming live action film adaptation of “Fullmetal Alchemist”, they will now have a number of them with the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival (TIFF) held on Wednesday. At the event,it was director Fumihiko Sori who made an appearance to talk on the film’s cast and other details.

It was Eiga.com who released the report on Sori’s discussion on the film along with an explanation onto the full Japanese cast of the film given its setting. According to Sori, “The heart part of the original manga is perfectly Japanese, and the brother relationship between Ed and Al is also unique to Japanese. It may be possible to recreate the manga characters’ visuals in a Hollywood’s big-budget film, but the heart part must be shifted

According to Sori, the casting choice was also due to the fact that the film was meant to recreate as much of the series as possible yet still maintain its roots of being a Japanese work. Still, it was revealed that the film did do some photography work in Italy. On another note, he also expressed that while the film would be considered as a human drama, the production would try to stretch as much creativity as possible.

For other details on the film, it was previously reported that 21-year-old actor Atom Mizuishi would be acting as the motion capture actor for the CGI created character that is Al but ended up as his voice actor instead. Sori explained that, “…the acting for motion capture by
Atom Mizuishi in a fighting scene was amazing and the dialogue between him and Ryosuke Yamada was so fit with that between Al and Ed, so we couldn’t replace him. I persuaded and apologised to all of the ‘adult circumstances’ in order to cast him."

At the end of his interview Sori left on a final note that the film would be providing a new image for the franchise and that he hoped that the audience could accept it.

“Fullmetal Alchemist” is a military fantasy series that had its anime adaptation released in October 2003 and ran for a total of 51 episodes before in October 2004. Set in a world where alchemy exists, the story takes focus on young and talented alchemist Edward Elric. After having lost much in result of a failed transmutation ritual from when he and his brother were still children, they now travel the world in search of the famed philosopher’s stone in order to restore his two limbs and return his brother’s, Al, soul to his body.

Source: Crunchyroll News