You guys can keep your Marvel and DC movies at this point. For all the brouhaha over the years with live-action manga and anime adaptations, filmmaker Tomasz Baginski’s hopeful franchise kickstarter, Knights Of The Zodiac is hitting all kinds of cool notes following a teaser leak a few days ago.
That teaser stemmed from the Japanese website heading up the film’s release next year from Toei, which has since gone dark until further notice – at least as of this post – while other uploads remain available, although it probably won’t matter anymore now that the first full teaser trailer is here in all its glory, with Sony shepherding the film stateside in 2023.
When a headstrong street orphan, Seiya (Mackenyu), in search of his abducted sister unwittingly taps into hidden powers, he discovers he might be the only person alive who can protect a reincarnated goddess, sent to watch over humanity. Can he let his past go and embrace his destiny to become a Knight of the Zodiac?
The film marks the first feature Hollywood foray for lead actor Mackenyu Arata, son of late screen legend Sonny Chiba and who has accumulated a number of screen credits for himself, including but not limited to the Chihayafuru trilogy, Keishi Ohtomo’s Rurouni Kenshin: The Final, and Fumihiko Sori’s back-to-back Fullmetal Alchemist sequels. He now brings his talents to the screen from a script by Kiel Murray, Josh Campbell and Matt Stuecken, based on Toei Animation’s 1986 anime follow-up from mangaka Masami Kurumada’s best-seller, “Saint Seiya”.
The film also stars Madison Iseman as Sienna, Sean Bean as Alman Kido, Famke Janssen as Guraad, Diego Tinoco as Nero, Mark Dacascos as Mylock, and Nick Stahl as Cassius, and features action sequences designed and coordinated by Andy Cheng (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, AMC’s “Into The Badlands”).
Peep the trailer below, and feel free to spy an eye on some stills at the Japanese website as well.
