Knights of the Zodiac is a new fantasy adventure film that feels more like a CGI compilation than any serious action flick. Adapted from a manga and anime series named Saint Seiya, the film follows an orphaned fighter named Seiya who gets to know that he is actually a knight destined to protect the goddess Athena, who has reincarnated in the body of a young girl. With a shoddy plotline and superficial characters, there is absolutely nothing to watch in Knights of the Zodiac, and a basic search on the internet reveals that fans of the manga are not thrilled about the film either.
Spoilers Alert
‘Knights Of The Zodiac’ Plot Summary: What Happens In The Film?
Knights of the Zodiac begins with a basic introduction to the lore of its world, in which the gods ruled upon earth centuries ago, torturing mortals seemingly for entertainment. The goddess of wisdom and war, Athena, chose to protect humans despite having the power to wipe out humanity forever, and she soon gathered a council of knights from all over the world to fight for her cause. These knights learned to collect and use the power of the stars, known as Cosmo, and they helped Athena protect humanity against the other gods, who gradually retreated and faded into oblivion. However, Athena is now reborn in the body of a baby girl, and a man named Alman Kiddo finds this baby in a helpless condition and adopts her.
We are then introduced to the protagonist, Seiya, who works as a fighter in an underground ring to earn a living. Seiya is different from conventional fighters, as he mostly dances around the ring and attacks at the right moment to win bouts. During one such fight, a veteran fighter named Cassios challenges Seiya, and the two engage in a battle inside the ring. Cassios is very proud and arrogant of the fact that he has never lost a fight, and he is also not very pleased with the fact that Seiya is gradually proving to be a skilled fighter, gaining popularity with each win. Cassios therefore wants to show Seiya his position, but something very strange happens when he is almost about to defeat Seiya. As if emanating some magic force from his body, Seiya manages to hurt Cassios and throw him to the ground, resulting in the veteran’s first loss.
Right after this fight, a man approaches Seiya, saying that he is in danger, and he then takes the young man to meet Alman Kiddo. Together with his henchman Mylock, Alman convinces Seiya that he must go away with them, for an evil woman named Guraad has been searching for any trace of magic and will surely come looking for Seiya. As Guraad’s warriors really swarm the place looking for Seiya, he agrees to go with Alman. At Alman’s safehouse, he reveals that Seiya is actually a guardian knight destined to protect the reincarnation of the goddess Athena, who happens to be Alman’s adopted daughter Sienna.
What Had Happened With Seiya’s Sister?
Having grown up an orphan, all that Seiya knew as family was his elder sister Patricia, who also gave the young boy his very first lessons in fighting. It was during one such practice session that Seiya seemed to hit a pendant that Patricia always wore, making it glow, and trouble came their way after this. The siblings soon had their house raided by a group of armed guards, and this attack was headed by none other than Guraad. The elder sister, Patricia, tried to comfort her brother by giving him the pendant and telling him to stay hidden inside the wardrobe. This worked well for Seiya, as he was never found, but Patricia was taken away by the evil people. Since then, Seiya has no idea where his elder sister is or even if she is alive, and he has been on a personal mission looking for her as well. At present, Alman informs him that it was indeed Guraad who had taken away his sister and also explains that the evil woman wants to take Sienna from him in a similar manner.
Although Seiya has a hard time believing that Sienna is actually a goddess or that he himself is a guardian angel, the young man stays back at Alman’s safe house. He is then sent to an island in order to train himself to bring out his powers as a knight of the zodiac. Another fighter, named Marin, helps him with the training, as she states that it is her responsibility to train young people with the powers of Cosmo and help them reach their true potential. Seiya is not too serious about this initially either, but Marin gradually convinces him that he can also find his sister by learning to use his Cosmo, and Knights of the Zodiac spends a long time showing the young man’s difficult training. At the end of it, Seiya reaches his true potential, and after using his Cosmo, which is in the form of a horse, the protagonist takes on the appearance of the Pegasus Knight, which is his real identity.
Along with this transformation, though, Seiya also sees visions from the past and realizes that Alman Kiddo was also present at his house when Patricia was taken away during his childhood. Wanting to know more about this grand betrayal and also seek revenge, Seiya returns to Alman’s safe house. It is now that Sienna reveals the entire truth to him about what happened to Patricia. Guraad had been in search of Cosmo ever since Seiya’s childhood days because she needed the special powers of the stars in order to stay alive. She had developed a method to find out the location of any person who unleashed their cosmic powers on the world, whether willingly or not. When Seiya hit the pendant that Patricia wore around her neck, it led to a blast of Cosmo, for the pendant actually belonged to Seiya as he was the Pegasus Knight. Guraad traced this blast and soon reached the siblings’ house. He believed Patricia to have cosmic powers and kidnapped her. However, no such powers were found in Patricia, and the elder sister had intentionally got herself caught to save her brother, for she knew that Seiya had this magical power. Guraad and her helpers had kidnapped several other children who were suspected of having cosmic powers, but when none of them could help her cause, she abandoned all of them.
Therefore, there is no conclusive answer to whether Patricia is still alive, but Seiya still chooses to believe that he can still find his sister. There are suggestions throughout the film that make it seem like the fighting trainer, Marin, is actually Patricia. As the woman always remained masked, there was no way to see how she looked, but it was quite clear that she knew about Seiya’s past and his kidnapped sister. During the visions that Seiya gets, Marin seems to change into Patricia and then into Sienna. This is, of course, essentially just a vision that makes Seiya understand that he must protect Sienna like he wanted to protect Patricia. But then it can also be seen as a hint that Marin is actually the elder sister in disguise. At the very end of Knights of the Zodiac, Seiya and Sienna are seen sitting and discussing their next plan, and Sienna says that they need to go look for Patricia. During this scene, Marin is seen looking at the two from a distance, and this further makes it seem like she is Patricia herself. But the fact that she does not reveal her identity makes it clear that there is some more secret that is keeping her from doing so, and that will only be revealed in the sequel film.
Why Does Guraad Want To Capture And Kill Sienna?
The most shocking thing about Guraad’s hunt for Sienna is the fact that she is actually the young woman’s mother. Guraad and Alman were actually married to each other in the past, and they had adopted Sienna as their own after the baby was found by Alman. The parents knew that Sienna was the present reincarnation of the goddess Athena, but they did not seem to have much idea about her powers. When Sienna was just a child, she unleashed her supreme cosmic powers unintentionally while she was in the arms of her mother. This tremendous power hurt Guraad so much that she lost her arms and was almost about to die. When Alman first found baby Sienna, she was in the arms of a knight in gold armor who had protected the goddess Athena while she was falling out of the sky. Alman now made use of this gold armor’s power to save Guraad, but such was the effect of her injury that she needed a constant source of Cosmo from now on to stay alive. This was, in fact, the reason why Guraad had been hunting down anyone with cosmic powers in order to extract the magic from them and use it for herself.
But this experience made Guraad and Alman go separate ways, for the two had very different interpretations of baby Sienna’s powers. While Alman felt that she would grow up and save the world with her wisdom, Guraad was sure that Sienna would take on the form of Athena, the goddess of warfare, and destroy the whole world. Sienna’s Cosmo was too strong to help Guraad, and so she was of no use to her, but the mother wanted to kill Sienna in order to save the world from destruction in the future. Alman had therefore kept his daughter hidden inside his safehouse, which was fitted with safety measures that ensured that Guraad never knew of her location, even if Sienna had her sudden outbursts of magical powers. On the other side, Guraad keeps on her search for Sienna, along with her trusted commander Nero and her army of fighters. She eventually kidnaps Sienna, though, and Alman’s effort to save the situation fails, even though he blows up his house and seemingly kills himself.
‘Knights Of The Zodiac’ Ending Explained: How Does Seiya Save Sienna?
With the help of Mylock, Seiya reaches Guraad’s compound in his effort to save Sienna. He has to face Cassios, who has been turned into a tough fighter by Guraad. But Cassios is no match for Seiya, who has now taken on the full appearance and armor of the Pegasus Knight. Meanwhile, Guraad had started the operation to take away Sienna’s powers and kill her, but towards the end of this process, she had a sudden change of heart. Remembering Alman’s words about how they should trust in Sienna as her parents, Guraad now orders the procedure to be stopped. But her trusted commander, Nero, now goes against Guraad and refuses to stop the extraction. He reveals himself to be the Phoenix Knight, one of the Knights of the Zodiac, but instead of protecting Athena, he wants to kill her. The Phoenix Knight seems to be against the idea of saving humanity, which Athena had done all those eons ago. Nero wants to not only kill Sienna but also attempt to take away the powers of the gold armor that is still inside Guraad.
By this time, Seiya has entered the scene, and a massive battle ensues between the Pegasus Knight and the Phoenix Knight. Both are heavily injured, but then Sienna takes on the form of the goddess Athena and starts to destroy the world in her rage of war. Nero tries to attack Athena and stop her, but he is easily defeated by her powers. It is then Seiya who addresses Athena directly as Sienna and talks about how one can create their own destiny, implying that she does not necessarily have to destroy the world only because she is supposed to. This love and compassion work wonders, and soon Sienna returns to her normal human self, and the destruction of the world is stopped. Sienna finds Guraad struggling and gives her some of her cosmic power to keep her alive. It seems that now that Sienna is in total control of her powers, her magic can be used to protect Guraad. Nero is also seen as heavily injured but alive. At the end of Knights of the Zodiac, Sienna tells Seiya that they now need to gather the rest of the Knights of the Zodiac, for the old Gods will surely return to wipe out humanity, making it quite clear that more films in this franchise are to come.
