MovieChat Forums > Hagane no renkinjutsushi (2017) Discussion > So far no high hopes....

So far no high hopes....

posted 9 years ago by ebronste
9 replies | jump to latest

I have long envisioned what a live action adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist would look like, and I can already say it's not this. Fullmetal Alchemist was/is the one anime I can think of that would make a great International co-production with a White and Asian cast, provided they find a good director or screenwriter. None of that seems to be the case. They're going to rush this thing out in a year with actors who don't even resemble the characters they're playing. It's akin to the white washing done by hollywood (a la Last Airbender) but in reverse. Sad, as the story had such potential otherwise. 😦

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[–] dougo13-587-139884 9 years ago

Or the live action Attack On Titan films done with an all Japanese cast because the director only works with Japanese people. What a disaster that was. It's not only Hollywood that screws up what could be great international cast productions...

[–] shadowrun_2 9 years ago

It could have been, but I was expecting they might go with an all Japanese cast so I'm not that shocked. If they did have an international cast people would complain anyway.

Also, either the Japanese actors would have to learn English or the English actors would have to learn Japanese. Either could be problematic and I don't want to hear either language spoken phonetically throughout an entire film.

[–] dougo13-587-139884 9 years ago

It doesn't seem to be a problem with many Chinese movies. International casts have been a thing for many decades now. Many films are overdubbed anyway. Films like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly were done in multiple languages when filmed and overdubbed later. Just watched a documentary on YouTube on that. So, it would be easy enough to do. Pacific Rim had actors who did the lines phonetically. But many directors in Japan just don't want to work with an international crew so I guess that's that and we will always get films which are majorly inferior to the original source material...

[–] Thenewnexus 9 years ago

AOT movie had a limited budget so its not like they could manage the expenses and still have enough to hire English Speaking actors and you have to remember Japan is 99 percent Japanese so they have no choice but to use actors from Japan. The same thing goes for this movie. American productions like Death Note and GITS actually have no reason to cast white actors,there are Asian Americans in America,Hollywood is just being racist.

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[–] dougo13-587-139884 9 years ago

I get the feeling that the director just didn't want to work with anyone else. Chinese movies are shot on a shoestring as well but they understand their market better. If the film calls for a white actor to be in it, they get a white actor. They could have got someone, anyone to have done roles for AoT...but they didn't. Heck why didn't they get Sony through Columbia to do the film? Couldn't be lack of interest since its an international hit.

Is there a new Death Note film coming out? The old ones from 2006 I remember seeing theatrically and they were all Japanese, which is pretty true to the manga. Just found my copy of Deathnote 13 How to Read again and am enjoying it again for the umpteenth time...

[–] lebliu 8 years ago

Yeah, there is a high chance that this will suck. I honestly don't see how a live action adaptation of 95% of manga could work even if they do hire great staff to do it.

[–] Bakezz 8 years ago

The budgets would have to be insane, the cgi alone would be the lions share.

Its what makes anime so great, they can often tell stories that live action movies/tv shows cant due to budget /cgi constraints.

[–] mekootje 8 years ago

I reckon it's a bit better than that, provided you get good people who are smart about CGI and what the story is really about. The problem is twofold I think: many need insane CGI only Hollywood could provide, and many have their stylistic roots in both story and aesthetics so firmly planted in manga they simply miss too much context outside of animation. FMA, DBZ and the likes are really difficult to do, and I don't see how they intend to make this work, so I'll grant you that one. But a few that could work:

Monster (psych thriller, doesn't require too much CGI)
Haibane Renmei (very character focused, not too much CGI needed, needs a good costume dept.)
Only Yesterday (very easy to do, only human characters and a realistic story)
Rainbow Fireflies (as above, but some CGI needed for the fireflies)

That's just off the top of my head. Of course, aside from Monster, none are popular enough for a live action treatment.

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[–] lebliu 8 years ago

I recently watched Death Note movie (2006) and it was great! They couldn't have made it better, IMO. They captured the essence of the story pretty well and even though Ryuk looked a bit weird compared to the surroundings, it didn't really detract for me because the acting and the story was good. But Death Note's world and characters are mostly realistic looking so it's easy to make them into live action without looking cringeworthy.

So after watching Death Note, I actually do have some hopes for FMA live action now. I think the world and the characters looks can be transfered well into live action. The only question for me now is whether or not people working on this project know how to capture the themes from the manga, portray important events and handle the character development well. The script is crucial. Attack on Titan movie got the looks perfectly but the story and the characters were a disaster. They also need a decent budget and people who are smart about CGI like you said so that the superpowers do not look too jarring to take you out of the movie.

I agree about Monster. That could absolutely 100% work. They are making one more anime into live action in 2017, Gintama. Gintama is one of my favorite series of all time (along with FMA) and, honestly, I cannot see how that will ever work, but we're getting it. Yay, I guess? It will be interesting to see these live action adaptations though. In 2017 we are getting 3 as far as I know: Death Note (American adaptation), Fullmetal Alchemist and Gintama.