A Japanese Fantasy Film Is Making A Strong Mark On Netflix's Top 10
What's Netflix thrown up for us this week? "Knights of the Zodiac" of course! What is that? Well, I'll be honest, I had no idea either. But I've taken a quick look-see and as it turns out, this Japanese fantasy film is proving pretty popular with Netflixers stateside.
A live-action adaptation of Masami Kurumada's manga, "Saint Seya," "Knights of the Zodiac" stars Japanese actor Mackenyu, alongside Madison Iseman and Nick Stahl. The film is also noteworthy for reuniting Sean Bean and Famke Janssen almost 30 years after they shared the screen in "GoldenEye." Co-produced by Toei and directed by "The Witcher" illustrator/producer Tomasz Tomek Bagiński, the film also features stunt and fight choreography from former Jackie Chan stunt team member and the man behind the action in Marvel's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," Andy Cheng.
Starting to sound like it might be ok, right? Well you should probably know that this thing garnered a 21% score on Rotten Tomatoes, with the general consensus being that "Knights of the Zodiac" features a plot that leaves much to be desired. Carlos Aguilar's review for the Los Angeles Times notes that the while the film "procures plenty of recognizable elements from the original iterations," its screenplay penned "by a trio of Western writers" and Bagiński's directing cause it to stumble "into narrative contrivances as it incessantly overworks certain emotional beats." Still, that hasn't stopped the Netflix crowds from gleefully streaming their way through such narrative contrivances.
A small win
"Knights of the Zodiac" hit Netflix on October 26, 2023 following a dire box office run earlier this year that netted the film just shy of $7 million globally, on a budget of $60 million. But as we've seen before, a lack of quality won't keep streaming audiences away from a film or series, as was the case when "The Snowman" hit Netflix and viewers proved they'd watch anything. Now, according to FlixPatrol, a site that aggregates streaming data, "Knights of the Zodiac" is once again making that same case, charting at number five on the US Netflix Top 10 one day after arriving on the platform.
Since then, the film has hovered around that same spot, rising to number 4 on October 28, before dropping to fifth again the following day. But this manga adaptation refuses to give up, having stuck it out at number five from October 31 to November 2. That's according to FlixPatrol, but a quick look at the Netflix homepage on November 2 indicates that "Knights of the Zodiac" has finally fallen out of the Top 10.
According to Netflix's official charts for the week of October 23-29, the film did enough to claim the overall fifth spot for that week, so we'll see what happens when the streamer updates its charts for this latest week. Then again, Netflix viewing metrics are dodgy at best, so we're not entirely sure just how well "Knights of the Zodiac" has fared with those that actually hit play on it. But it's at least a small win for the otherwise ill-fated adaptation before it fades into obscurity.