Review of Knights of the Zodiac, directed by Tomasz Bagiński

I will admit, I was originally planning to see this movies in theaters. I’ve been hearing about Mackenyu as a rising star as of late, and was finally curious to go see something with him in it, but what deterred me from actually going were the reviews. I saw how low the ratings for this movie was, and I knew that if it was going to be a flaming trash can, it had to be certain kind or I wouldn’t want to waste two hours in a movie theater when the alternative is to wait for the DVD or for streaming.

So I waited, and when it was added on Netflix, I ended up watching it the next day. I think I’m glad I didn’t end up going to see this film in a theater because of that, as it wasn’t the best film overall. Lots of cringe moments scattered throughout, I will admit. But we can’t spoil my thoughts too soon—this is only the introduction to this post!

Let’s get into the review.

A street orphan discovers he has powers while searching for his long-lost sister.

Our main character in Knights of the Zodiac is Seiya, who is a street orphan looking for his sister Patricia. She was kidnapped and ever since then, he’s been out on the streets looking for a sign she’s still alive. But when he’s in the middle of a fight, Seiya is surrounded by a blue light, which will kickstart the beginning of this movie’s journey. When one of his companions is kidnapped by Guraad, who is Kido’s ex-wife, Seiya, Kido, and Mylock (Kido’s assistant) are chased by Guraad’s goons. Seiya is knocked out, and Kido takes him to his hideout.

There, Kido, reveals his adopted daughter is a literal reincarnation of the god Athena, and Seiya is going to become the Pegasus Knight. As it turns out, Seiya’s sister knew what his fate was going to be and gave herself up to protect him, but first Seiya needs to train under Marin the Silver Knight to understand the capabilities of his power. The next morning, Sienna, the adopted daughter, loses control of her power, but is calmed down in time before something terrible happens.

Seiya’s opponent from earlier is cut to, and he joins forces with Guraad in order to get revenge against Seiya. Sienna convinces Seiya to go to the mountain where Marin is to train in the meantime, and while he sucks at his powers at first, he learns to get better with Marins help. At home, Sienna has a meltdown when she has a dream where she causes mass destruction when she loses control of her power, but that forces her to lose control now.

Back on the mountain, Seiya learns to control his power, and he unlocks his Pegasus Knight armor. When doing so, he has a vision in which he realizes Kido was there when Patricia was kidnapped. He returns to the mansion to confront Kido for this, but then ends up being taken away by Sienna, who tells him that she ruined Guraad’s arms when young. Guraad drains the power out of kids in order to keep on living, which is awfully supervillain of her.

On the evil end of things, Guraad learns the location of the hideout, and brings her warriors to fight against her enemies. Seiya joins the fight and his beaten down after failing to unlock his armor, Kido forces the estate to self-destruct and dies in the process, and Sienna is taken away by Guraad’s goons. As it turns out, Guraad wants Sienna’s energy, and Seiya is rescued back from the battlefield.

With Mylock, Seiya comes to the rescue and defeats everyone who gets in his way. Guraad has a change of heart and tries to save Sienna, but then is betrayed by Nero. Nero and Seiya start to fight as Sienna transitions into Athena, which will destroy everything around them, but Seiya coaxes her back down into her mortal form. When she wakes up after all of this, her hair is purple, she restores Guraad’s arms, and Sienna tells them the Knights of the Zodiac are now needed because the old gods are coming back. The next key is to find Patricia, which implies any movie is happening.

Overall Thoughts

As someone who had no emotional attachment to this before it was adapted into a movie, I found the plot of the movie to be kind of inaccessible and difficult to understand on a first viewing. There was just a lot going on, and it might’ve benefitted more from a television run where it was able to explain all the nuances of the world these characters are living inside of. And, to be honest, the script fell super bad and awkward when it came to some of the dialogue, which made it a bit more cringe worthy in the long run. But I’m glad I watched it instead of brushing it off, although my opinion might not be too positive.

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