We talked with Diego Tinoco and Sean Bean about the film that adapts the strokes of Masami Kurumada, The Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya – The Beginning. In addition to sharing curiosities about the filming, they commented that the film that was recently released in theaters (check out our coverage) is a good adaptation despite the changes. Below we leave you the full interview.
Adaptation or reconstruction?
LEVEL UP: Athena is a very powerful character with a lot of responsibility on her shoulders. Do you think there are many differences between Saori from the anime and Sienna from this movie?
Madison Seaman: “I think the trick is live action. We want to bring something fresh and new to everyone who loved anime and manga but also keep it realistic, keep character traits that everyone fell in love with from the beginning. Anything that is happens to you can be a topic of discussion at some point, even the subject of her hair.
In fact, there was talk about Sienna’s hair, from the very first day of filming. I remember doing my research ever since I saw Athena with the purple hair from the anime. I fell in love and fought to keep it that way. I think there was a time when her hair color wouldn’t be purple at all.
It was something that I carried with me, and I felt that it was very important for those who fell in love with Saori so long ago. There are always little things like that, but I think by doing live action we wanted to make the movie realistic and we could give the audience characters they could relate to. It was very important that even as a goddess Sienna was a girl going through a struggle and a journey in search of her identity, other young women can identify with her.”
“We want to bring something fresh and new for everyone who loved anime and manga but also keep it real”
LEVEL UP: In the original work the characters launch energy and other special attacks, this time they decided to focus on martial arts most of the time. What’s your take on this being an action star?
Mark Dacascos: “I loved it and I loved working with the team of Andy Cheng, a stunt coordinator extraordinaire. My character Mylock is not a demigod or a knight and I don’t have armor, so I have to use my skills: fighting with a staff; a gun and use martial arts.
My parents are kung-fu masters, so I grew up with martial arts. I enjoyed using martial arts to fight entities that were more powerful than my character. From this point of view, it was quite a challenge. And although it sounds very exaggerated, Mylock is based on loyalty and love, I loved that.”
LEVEL UP: Alman Kiddo has a lot of changes compared to the original version. Did you have an approach to the anime or manga to interpret it? Does your character have something of Mitsumasa Kido?
Sean Bean: “I wasn’t that familiar with the manga theme for this film. It’s quite rare in the UK, we didn’t realize the impact it had in other places like Asia or America. I wasn’t that used to it at first but I explored it during rehearsals. and I built the character from there. I knew the kind of role I was playing and tried to play it as honestly as possible.
He is a former billionaire, a very successful businessman who retired to follow his true passion for ancient folklore and mythology. And then, stumbling upon the reincarnation of the goddess Athena, was a big deal because he was already interested in the subject. That was my background, and I built it from there. I knew the role I was playing and I tried to play it the best way I could.
What I know about Mitsumasa Kido is that he had hundreds of children (laughs). Obviously that was not included in the movie. He could be a distraction, the original character strikes me as a bit of a satyr.”
“I wasn’t that familiar with the manga theme for this movie”
LEVEL UP: Are you a fan of anime or manga? Did this movie arouse your interest in these types of stories?
Sean Bean: “Japanese culture is always a fascinating subject no matter how you look at it. It’s so different from ours, but it’s fascinating and intriguing. Combining the manga and anime with Greek mythology, I found it fascinating and it worked very well for the film. , it was pretty unique. It’s something I’m interested in from now on.”
The Phoenix knight seems to be the most faithful character
The villains also told us about their involvement in The Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya – The Beginning. The director took a lot of liberties to make his characters fit into his version of the story. Changes that fans will notice from the beginning of the film.
LEVEL UP: Guraad is a very different character than the one we saw in the Netflix series. How did you prepare?
Famke Jansen: “She doesn’t exist in the original anime. She was actually a male character in the series. In this case, Guraad is a completely new character that they created for the movie. And luckily I got to play with her a bit. When they showed me the script For the first time, I thought, “Okay, but if you ask a woman to kill her own daughter, we’re going to have to talk about the emotional line and her story, because it’s something important. It’s not just any villain trying to destroy anything to save humanity. This is a story and also a very personal journey. We worked very hard on it.
“I did my homework, watched the original anime as much as I could, and thoroughly studied Ikki’s behavior”
LEVEL UP: The Phoenix Knight is an antihero with ups and downs, did you focus on creating a villain?
Diego Tinoco: “I did my homework, watched the original anime as much as I could, and thoroughly studied Ikki’s behavior. The way he talks; how he moves; how he walks and how he fights. What I found most fascinating about this guy was his past and all his traumas. He lost Esmeralda, the love of his life, on an island while he was training to become this great knight. He lost her because he couldn’t be what the world wanted him to be. I think that fuels a lot of the hate inside him and it motivates him to do all the questionable things he used to do.His brother was also taken from him when he was very young.
I decided to base my character on that past that feeds all his negative energy and we’ll see how all of that comes out in the third act of the movie, for better or worse.”
What is different this time?
LEVEL UP: Many fans have lost faith in adaptations based on other anime franchises. Why should we trust this time?
Madison Isemann: “You can’t please everyone, although we’d love to. I hope you know, above all else, that we went into this with you in mind, that we listened to you, and that we want to give you what you want. There are a lot of people in the world, it’s literally impossible, but we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the fans, otherwise this movie wouldn’t have been possible, it’s for the fans and I hope they fall in love with the characters as much as we do, we put a lot of love and hard work on them. I think they’ll be satisfied.”
Sean Bean: “It’s different because of what I mentioned about Greek mythology. It’s a vast and very interesting story, these themes interested me since I was a child. The blend of cultures is a very powerful mix and sets it apart from other films of this nature. It has both things, as I said, are portrayed successfully”.
“With that same heart and motivation of the anime we tried to honor the original story as much as possible”
Diego Tinoco: “Well, we have an excellent cast. The director, Tomasz Bagiński, comes from The Witcher and Famke was in many projects: X-Men as Phoenix, of course. nick in Terminator; madison in jumanji; Sean Bean in game of Thrones. We have a remarkable cast, and we have a story with a lot of heart. With that same heart and motivation from the anime, we tried to honor the original story as much as possible.”
We thank the Sony Pictures team for the facilities provided to carry out this interview.
You can see The Knights of the Zodiac: Saint Seiya – The Beginning from April 27 on different chains in the country.
Follow this link to see more news related to Saint Seiya.
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