DVD Corner

Fullmetal Alchemist The Movie: Conqueror Of Shamballa Blu-ray Review

‘Conqueror Of Shamballa’ is strictly of interest to “Fullmetal Alchemist” fans.

Grades:

Content: B-

Picture: A-

Audio: A-

Extras: A-

THE MOVIE:

The plot: Al is attempting to find his brother (Edward Elric) who is stuck in another world (Earth- 1923 Munich to be exact). Al and Edward are both from a world (Amestris) which is filled with alchemy and magic. Anyway, matters become complicated when Edward finds that a group of Nazis known as the Thule society are plotting to open a gate to Amestris. Their goal? To conquer the world. Can the Thule Society be stopped? Will Edward get back to Amestris? ‘Shamballa’ is set two years after the “Fullmetal Alchemist” series.

Unless you’re a die hard “Fullmetal Alchemist” fan, you are likely to feel lost while watching ‘Shamballa.’ This would not be a starting point for someone wanting to jump into the series as the movie is set AFTER the series. With that said, fans of the popular anime series will likely be overjoyed by this movie. It’s an exciting, epic action packed feature film that contains everything from fighter planes and a dragon to Homunculi, and an army of armored soldiers. There’s also some great character moments between the lead characters Edward and Al to boot.

On the downside, the story is a bit of a frantic mess. The story jumps around a little too much for my taste and it does get bogged down by exposition from time to time. Luckily, the character moments and action balance it out.

PICTURE AND SOUND:

‘Shamballa’ shines on Blu-ray. The widescreen 1080p picture quality does wonders from everything to the lighting to the gorgeous 3D animation.

The Blu-ray disc contains both English and Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio tracks. The English track contains good voice work (for a change) and is worth listening to. However, it is preferable to listen to the Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track as that is the film’s original language audio track.

EXTRAS:

* Funimation trailers, production art image gallery, and ‘Shamballa’ trailers.
* An entertaining 54 minute conversation between director Seiji Mizushima, voice actor Toru Okawa, and voice actresses Romi Park and Rie Kugimiya. The four talk about voice acting, characters, etc.
* “The Making Of Fullmetal Alchemist The Movie Conqueror Of Shamballa”- A fascinating 40 minute documentary containing a look at the studio (where merchandise and art are stored), information about the script (and cut sequences), a look at how the score was created, etc. This is one of the few making of docus that I’ve seen that are actually worth your time.
* A grand total of 3 commentaries. There’s a staff commentary with Seiji Mizushima, Yohei Miyahara, and Yoshihiro Oyabu, a Japanese actor commentary with Romi Park, Rie Kugimiya, Seiji Mizushima and Toyoguchi Megumi, and a US commentary by the voice director and actors/actresses. While better than most, the US commentary is predictably uninteresting as the crew was only involved in dubbing the movie. The Japanese tracks are far more engaging as the tracks are not only fun to listen to, but they actually worked on the movie and offer some interesting stories about the production

November 20, 2009 - Posted by nicklyons1 | 1 | Fullmetal Alchemist The Movie: Conqueror Of Shamballa Blu-ray Review