I’m a little biased when it comes to some films. I’m especially keen on adaptations of Japanese mangas, given the fascinating source material and their cultural sway they’ve earned in the last century. Knights Of The Zodiac is just the latest to come out of the woodwork of Sony Pictures/Stage 6 Films, and comes with the exciting arrival of Japanese actor Mackenyu who nowadays can be seen reveling in the success of his most recent streaming episodic, Netflix’s “One Piece“.
Knights Of The Zodiac, directed by Tomek Bagiński, wasn’t exactly the most critically or commercially well received. It was a box office bomb and fans of the original IP from mangaka Masami Kurumada didn’t take too kindly to the film for each their own reasons, citing anywhere from its derivative treatment of the manga and anime to the overall delivery in scripting and visual effects. The same has been said aplenty to some degree or another on other Western feature film adaptations like Rupert Sanders’ Ghost In The Shell and James Wong’s 2009 disappointment Dragonball Evolution, a film that perpetuated dubious, longstanding debates on whether or not aliens should be White-American or Chinese.
For what it’s worth, that conversation gets shelved with Baginski’s treatment of Saint Seiya with the casting of Mackenyu in his first feature film foray outside of Japan, carrying with him credits such as Rurouni Kenshin: The Final and Takashi Miike’s JoJo’s Bizzare Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable. The actor also inherits the legacy as one of the current children of late action star and martial arts movie legend Sonny Chiba, a name to which Mackenyu lends more than plenty of justice with his own screen caliber in the genre, ultimately proving himself once again under the stewardship of a team led by stunt coordinator and celebrated action director Andy Cheng.
Josh Campbell, Matt Stuecken and Kiel Murray comprise the trio of writers tasked with adapting Knights Of The Zodiac which herein sees young street fighter Seiya (Mackenyu) whisked away by Alman Kido (Sean Bean) amid a hail of bullets, and the might of Guraad (Famke Janssen) and her army of Black Knights. Subsequently thrust into the most explosive chapter of his life and learning of Kido’s adopted daughter, Sienna (Madison Iseman), believed to be a reincarnation of Athena, Seiya chooses to undergo his training at a remote island where he meets the legendary Silver Knight, Marin (VO-acted by Katie Moy, physically performed by Caitlin Hutson), to train and potentially don Pegasus Knight’s armor (which only he can activate) to protect Sienna.
The movie is keen on focusing on Seiya’s quest to face his demons and quell what hinders him from fully becoming the hero he needs to be, while highlighting the innerworkings of Guraad’s organization, along with her goals of consuming Sienna’s “Cosmo”. Par for the course is the enigmatic and slightly quieter actions of Guraad’s right hand, Nero (Diego Tinoco) whose true form slowly but surely reveals itself to be that of the Phoenix Knight, known prominently as Ikki in Kurumada’s work. His final battle with Seiya was especially cool to watch, particularly with the action sure to highlight the odds our hero faces when it comes to measuring powers and abilities and tenaciously fighting to win. This sort of thing is indubitably familiar with anyone who has ever watched a Shonen anime battle where the protagonist gets cornered by an enemy seemingly more powerful than he can conquer.
Where movies like Knights Of The Zodiac tend to fail for genres of this kind, I personally tend to rely on how films like these can pick up the most. Admittedly, the writing for this film was unnerving and a little annoying at times. To that end, I can appreciate how much the cast attributed to make as much of the film work as possible, and there’s no question that in its own way, it certainly does. The action does exponentially well when it comes to showcasing the talents of our cast, even for someone like Nick Stahl who while not typically someone who comes to mind in a fighting role, gets cast in a way less-stockier and beefy version of the antagonistic and burly Cassios, whose character and choreography are designed to make him look as formidable and strong as he touts himself to be leading up to the Seiya’s first fight scene, which also features co-star, actor and martial artist David Torok.
I would also add that Knights Of The Zodiac also makes a great – and I mean a fucking GREAT case – to see Cheng collaborate again one day with co-star Mark Dacascos, seen here in this film’s iteration of Saint Seiya supporting character Mylock, Kido’s best friend and lean, sharply-dressed, fast and fierce personal assistant. For quite a while, at least until John Wick: Chapter 3, serial dramas Warrior and Netflix’s “Wu Assassins,” we didn’t see a whole lot of Dacascos in action, and so for an actor aging well enough to still look good on screen, and for a character tasked with going toe-to-toe with Cosmo-powered goons, Cheng and Baginski do wonders for his character, and the cinematography is especially endearing.
A lot of folks have pretty much made up their minds about this movie, which is a shame. Over the years, Speed Racer has become a cult hit, and I know guys who still have a soft-spot for The Guyver and another one of Toei’s yesteryear investments, Tony Randel’s Fist Of The North Star and love Gary Daniels in one of his most notable heyday characters to date. I could go for paragraphs more about the amount of films I see people dote on that are in my view, mid-to-just plain terrible, painly and simply. But, I won’t. Only because I know somewhere out there is a Saint Seiya superfan who probably thinks I deserve to get castrated in hell for defending this film’s merits. Welp, at any rate, I tip my hat to that individual and his mutuals in hopes that maybe one day they’ll be the ones to sort out just who it is they believe can do a better job than Baginski has with this iteration.
Knights Of The Zodiac has had an uphill battle ever since it was birthed into the fandoms, mainly in the Western world where the property underwent a shameless, sordid history of retooling and re-editing for Western audiences, winning in some parts of our anime and manga demographic and floundering in mostly others, while ultimately finding greener grasses among Latin American audiences (I talked a bit about this in a post sharing a pair of web documentaries covering this manga, and if you haven’t seen them yet, I wholly recommend checking them out). This alone is proof that Knights Of The Zodiac has something going for itself, even if most of the fans and critics believe different. If you haven’t seen it yet, the movie is currently available on Digital to rent or purchase wherever movies are sold, as well as on Blu-Ray, and on Netflix as of this week.
