Film / Knights of the Zodiac

Go beyond your destiny.

"The Pegasus Knight is brave, humble, and committed to protecting Athena with his life."

—Eagle Marin

Knights of the Zodiac (known as Saint Seiya: The Beginning in Japan) is a 2023 American superhero fantasy film co-produced by Toei Animation and Stage 6 Films, and is a Live-Action Adaptation of the manga Saint Seiya. It is directed by Tomek Baginski, with Josh Campbell, Matt Stuecken, and Kiel Murray providing the screenplay. Yoshihiro Ike, who previously composed for Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary, composes the score here too.

The film follows Seiya, a headstrong teenage orphan searching for his abducted sister. When he awakens to a strange power during an underground fight, he is recruited by Alman Kiddo, who reveals he is destined to protect the goddess Athena, currently reincarnated as a girl named Sienna. To do so, Seiya must embrace his destiny and become the Pegasus Knight, one of many Knights charged with protecting Athena; however, there are forces who wish to kill the goddess, including Nero, the Phoenix Knight.

The film stars Mackenyu as Seiya, Famke Janssen as Guraad, Madison Iseman as Sienna/Athena, Diego Tinoco as Nero, Mark Dacascos as Mylock, Nick Stahl as Cassios, and Sean Bean as Alman Kiddo.

Knights of the Zodiac was released in theaters in Japan on April 28, 2023 and in the United States on May 12, 2023.

Previews: Teaser Trailer, Official Trailer

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Knights of the Zodiac contains examples of:

• Adaptation Amalgamation: The film adapts the original manga along with several elements from the 2019 Netflix reboot, such as its Dub Name Changes, and its iteration of the Black Saints arc, including the character of Guraad.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: While Saori's hair was fully purple in the manga and anime, Sienna's is blonde with purple streaks. Subverted in that it turns fully purple when Athena takes over in the climax and stays that way in the end.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul:
  • While Saori Kido was Mitsumasa's adopted granddaughter, Sienna Kido is Alman's adopted daughter.
  • The genderflipped Guraad is now Alman's ex-wife rather than his business partner.
• Adaptational Attractiveness: While Cassios in the original series was a monstrous giant, the film shows him as a normal-looking human.
• Adaptational Badass: In the original manga and anime, Tatsumi/Mylock is Saori/Sienna's bumbling bodyguard, a dude looking strong and scary but actually being a wimpy comic sidekick fooling around with a kendo stick against enemies far powerful than himself. Here Mylock is Alman and Sienna's bodyguard (also, Alman's best friend and Sienna's secondary father figure), a scarily competent hitman able to go toe to toe with Guraad's empowered henchmen, acting all the time as The Stoic and the Deadpan Snarker.
• Adaptational Heroism: Docrates goes from being a servant of Gemini Saga to one of Alman's bodyguards.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Mitsumasa, either in the original manga or anime, was a really prolific bad father who fathered hundreds of child to send them risking their lives to get a cloth or a rich guy funding several institutions just to get a cache of orphans to send around the world risking their lives and enough spares to ensure his plan. In this version, he let Guraad hound and kill several potential child Saints to use their Cosmos to extend her life, hoping she'll let Sienna be, and then fled eaten by remorse.
• Adaptational Villainy: The Steel Saints, anime-only characters in the original anime source, were three heroic youngsters fitted by the Thule Foundation with technological armors able to to put them almost on par with the Bronze Saints (but still able to use the element of surprise to help them). Guraad here owns a private army of tecnologically advanced cyborgs, fitted with robotic limbs looking like black cloth able to clash with an armorless Seiya and win, made by studying the Knights of the Zodiac and replicating part of their prowess.
• Adapted Out: Shiryu, Hyoga, and Shun are omitted from the film, with Seiya and Ikki/Nero as the only Bronze Saints in the cast.
  • In the Sequel Hook Sienna claims she must reunite the Saints as Seiya will need as much help as needed to face Nero and the upcomic Galaxian Wars, hinting she's planning to reunite the original gang
• Age Lift:
  • Seiya starts training to become a Knight while he's already a teenager; in the original manga and anime, he had begun his training as a young child.
    • Doubles with Mythology Gag: Seiya did start to train as a child, under his sister Patricia's wing, but their training was cut short because of Guraad. In the original manga Seiya spends most of the series chasing several red herrings that push him to believe Marin may be Patricia.
  • Sienna's age is bumped up from 13 to 18 in the film.
  • Cassios, despite being a hulking brute in the source material, was only fifteen. His movie counterpart is bumped up to middle-age.
  • Alman Kido is also middle-aged here as opposed to being elderly like Mitsumasa Kido was in the source material.
• And Starring: The credits cap off its cast list with "And Sean Bean".
• Casting Gag: In the Japanese dub, Sienna is voiced by Megumi Han, the daughter of Keiko Han, who voiced her counterpart Saori Kido in the Japanese version of the TV animated adaptation of the manga.
• Cool Mask: Eagle Marin's face-concealing mask now resembles Athena's face.
• Costume Evolution: The film shows two different forms of the Pegasus Cloth; one that resembles its first form in the original manga, and another that covers more of the body, with wing-emblazoned shoulder pads and a helmet that covers all but the eyes.
• The Dragon: Nero acts like this for Guraad. However, due to Guraad blaming him for having failed to reach Seiya before Alman, Cassios takes his place on the battlefield most of the time.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Alman blows up his estate to try to take Guraad with him. In the source material, Mitsumasa passed away from natural causes before the story begins.
• Dub Name Change: The film has many of its characters' names changed to match that of Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac (e.g. Ikki is "Nero", Saori is "Sienna", and Tatsumi is "Mylock").
  • The Italian dub renames Sienna "Isabel", as in the Italian dub of the original series.
  • Interestingly the Brazilian dub restores Saori and Ikki's names while keeping Alman Kiddo and Mylock.
• Early-Bird Cameo: The film opens with Capricorn Shura fighting Sagittarius Aiolos; both first appear well into the Sanctuary arc.
• Evil Wears Black: Guraad and her goons are all dressed in black.
• Gender Flip: Guraad, originally a man in Saint Seiya: Knights of the Zodiac, is now a woman played by Famke Janssen.
• Heel–Face Turn: Guraad has a change of heart during the God-killing procedure and tries to get the device shut down. Nero, however, refuses to comply.
  • Doubles with Bodyguard Betrayal: until then, Nero was the unflinching follower of Guraad's will. As soon as Guraad resolve wavers, he's more than happy to backstab her and start playing by his personal agenda.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Subverted; the Pegasus armor has a helmet, complete with a mouthplate as in Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary. This extends to the other armors, which all (near) completely cover the wearer's face.
  • Played With: in every battle they fight, the helmet is the first part of the armor that has to go, freeing the faces.
• Kill the God: Guraad's goal is to neutralize Athena's Cosmo, which would end up killing Sienna, though she believes it's for the greater good.
  Guraad: The war that awaits us is unlike any other before. I must save the rest of us from her.
• Market-Based Title: While the movie is Western and uses the Knights of the Zodiac title used for the franchise in Europe and Latin America, its Japanese release retitles it Saint Seiya: The Beginning.
• Origins Episode: The film depicts Seiya's journey from a street-fighting orphan to a powerful Knight of Athena. The movie's Japanese title, Saint Seiya: The Beginning, leans further into it.
• Power Glows: Seiya's Cosmo is shown as a glowing blue aura that surrounds him. A similar effect is shown for Nero (albeit red), Sienna (purple), and Shura (green).
• Purple Is Powerful: Athena's devastatingly powerful Cosmo is shown as a purple aura.
• Red Herring: The movie inherits all the red herrings about Patricia, Seiya's sister. For most of the manga, Seiya is wrongly led to believe that Patricia is Marin. In the movie, Marin is the second female character able to train Pegasus in the ways of the Cosmos after Patricia and claims that some hidden circumstances force her to live in isolation without ever showing her face... straight before Alman tells Seiya that Patricia did flee from Guraad's imprisonment, but refused to meet Seiya again because Guraad would then be able to capture them both and left him the Pegasus cloth.
• Sequel Hook: The whole ending is just a way to introduce an alternate retelling of the event of the manga. Seiya and Sienna are safe on Marin's island, and Sienna is fully in control of the Cosmos of Athena. However, Patricia is sill nowhere to be found, and soon the other gods and possibly the Gold Saints wanting to off Sienna like Capricorn in the opening sequence will restart the Galaxian Wars. Sienna vows to find Patricia for Seiya and reunite the Knights of the Zodiac loyal to Athena to protect Earth. Meanwhile Nero is still in possession of the Sagittar Cloth, and one of the earliest arc of the original manga had Sienna summoning the Saints to get the Sagittar Cloth back from Nero, hinting that as soon as Sienna will summon the remaining Saint, Pegasus will get his rematch with Phoenix.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: When Cassios sees the God-killing device, he wonders why they don't just kill Sienna in a more conventional manner. Guraad explains that doing that would cause Athena's Cosmo to awaken, with Nero chiming in that it would be like trying to disarm a nuke by bashing it with a club.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Guraad survives the film, unlike her counterpart in the Netflix series, who is killed in a final battle with Seiya.
• Taking You with Me: Alman says this to Guraad as he sets his estate to self-destruct, hoping to kill her along with himself.
• Theme Music Power-Up: Yoshihiro Ike's score incorporates Pegasus Fantasy when Seiya first dons the Pegasus armor, and later, when he appears in the full-armor during the climax.
• You Don't Look Like You: In the source material Saori/Sienna is a polite, softspoken teenager (no more than 13 years old) looking and acting wise beyond her age with long, flowy purple hair reaching her legs, aware of her destiny and always knowing what's right. Sienna here is a sassy blonde woman with curly hair, foul mouthed, a motormouth and deeply insecure. However by the end of the movie she gains her long purple hair and her personality settles into the all-loving goddess Manga!Sienna is.

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