This year brought the live-action movie adaptation of the beloved anime franchise “Knights of the Zodiac,” or better, “Saint-Seiya.” The movie, directed by Tomasz Baginski, quickly proves to be yet another seemingly-failed attempt in recreating manga stories for a western audience.
The badly fragmented plot of the “Knights of the Zodiac” presents Alman Kido (Sean Bean) taking in Seiya (Mackenyu). He does this in order to train him to find the way to use the mythical Pegasus armour to protect Kido’s daughter Sienna (Madison Iseman), who should be the reincarnation of the goddess Athena. This is all whilst the villain Guraad (Famke Janssen) leads a paramilitary group. She wishes to kill Sienna, to save the world from probable annihilation.
Missing the Structure of the Manga Series
The above plot is connected to the CGI series of 2019, but leaves out the structure from the famous manga. At a moment you’re left with the thought maybe the director and writers were not on the same page. At times it seems they wanted to produce a hybrid between “Power Rangers” and “Mortal Kombat.” Any of those is certain failure.
The movie lacks structure and meaning, and the delivery is disappointing. The cast doesn’t excel, or even try to act as though they’re making an effort. The fragmentary approach towards to narrative proves the essential problem, felt after a few minutes: there was no real effort to create a solid frame to capture the true spirit of the manga story.
No Brighter Days for Manga Adaptations
It appears as though the destiny of live-action manga adaptations is still doomed and doesn’t look any brighter. Apart from some CGI scenery, “Knights of the Zodiac” is an amateur attempt at movie making. This adaptation only sheds light on the fact maybe sometimes it is better to wait, or maybe even to do nothing.
“Knights of the Zodiac” is currently available to watch on Amazon Prime.
