CONQUEROR OF SHAMBALLA FULL MOVIE MOVIE
With so little time to maneuver in, the movie has to cook up what it can on short notice.
CONQUEROR OF SHAMBALLA FULL MOVIE SERIES
That was one of the things the TV series did just right, taking its time to build a collection of compelling bad guys. Where the story has real problems is before the big world-crossing finish, when it's trying and failing to serve up a decent villain. For most of the gaps in logic, though, the movie at least has a good try at papering over them. How did our boys get their bodies rejiggered in just the way they wanted to? Well… maybe the thing responds to the power of positive thinking. I'm still not sure I could pass a test on exactly how the passage between worlds is meant to work. You can poke some decent-sized holes in the plot if you feel like it. (Edward happens to trip over a few familiar faces there in Germany.) It's an awful lot of material to cram into just over 100 minutes, and it says something that the story actually doesn't feel rushed most of the time. Conqueror of Shamballa tells two parallel stories for each of the brothers, serves up four or five great-looking action set-pieces, and at the same time tries to fit in a modest amount of screen time for nearly every supporting character from the entire TV series – even the ones who got killed before it was halfway over. What ensues could be fairly described as a whirlwind of events. The movie kicks off two years later, with Ed stuck in Munich, Germany during the days of the beer-hall putsch and Al trying to find a way to get him back home. At the end of the TV series, Alphonse Elric got his real body back, but only after his world gave up another body in exchange – his brother's, which wound up transported to something like our "real" world. It doesn't have enough running room to get everything right, but then the TV show left an awful lot of loose ends hanging. It's a great-looking action romp, though, with an ending that might jerk a tear or two regardless. So this may or may not be the "real" conclusion to Edward Elric's story. Which leaves the events of this movie in a peculiar sort of place – "retconned" into the ether, as comic book nerds would put it. In the meantime, Hiromu Arakawa's manga series was chugging along with a completely different story – the story that's hitting the airwaves now as Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. A year or so later this movie showed up to provide the exciting conclusion. The original Alchemist TV show ended with an infamous cliffhanger. If you follow Japanese animation at all, you already know all the details, but here's a primer for anyone who showed up late to the party. A new Fullmetal Alchemist series is running on Japanese TV right now, conceived in large part with the aim of rewriting The Conqueror of Shamballa out of existence. Though the combined forces of alchemy and science may indeed yield enough power to bring the brothers back together, the chaos that could follow threatens to cause more bloodshed than either Ed or Al ever imagined.In light of recent events, watching this movie feels pretty weird. Little does Ed know that back on his home planet, his brother Al has been conducting a series of experiments in alchemy and mastering incredible powers in hopes of locating his desperate sibling. But you never know what the future holds, and when Ed saves a psychic Gypsy girl, he quickly finds himself immersed in a plot by the mysterious Thule Society and the rising Nazi Party that threatens to thrust both Earth and his home planet into a horrible war. It's been two long years since Edward Elric's bold sacrifice found him thrust into the unfamiliar Earth realm, and as he continues to research rocketry in Munich alongside fellow researcher Alphons Heiderich - a scientist who strangely resembles Ed's long-lost brother Al - the slow progress leaves the discouraged Ed wondering if he'll ever see his brother again. The year is 1923, and the burgeoning Nazi party is slowly gaining a foothold in German politics. Two brothers trapped in different worlds struggle to unlock the secrets that will bring them back together in this feature-length entry into the Full Metal Alchemist saga.