Diablo, Starring Scott Adkins & Marko Zaror

El Corvo is martial artist with an iron fist, but he is nothing like Marvel’s Hero-for-Hire or RZA’s Kung Fu hip hop hero. He is more like an invulnerable serial killer from a slasher horror movie, but with incredible chops. However, he might just meet his match in a motivated American ex-con trying to rescue his biological daughter throughout Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s Diablo, which releases this Friday in theater and on-demand/digital.

Rather counter-intuitively, Kris Chaney paid to be smuggled into Colombia from the United States. Perhaps even more ill-advisedly, the traffickers try to extort more money from him upon arrival. He is played by Scott Adkins, so good luck with that.

Chaney had to keep his visit secret from Vicente, a big Columbian boss, who was once part of Chaney’s bank heist crew. Then Vicente betrayed Chaney and stole his lover. By the time she realized his true colors it was too late, but she made Chaney promise to save their daughter Elisa once he was released from prison. Of course, Elisa only knows life as Vicente’s daughter, so she rather resists Chaney’s rescue, at least initially.

Unfortunately, El Corvo (which translates to “The Crow,” but he nothing like the immortal Eric Draven either) is the wild card in Chaney’s feud with Vicente. Bearing a bitter grudge against the latter, the hulking killer with metallic arm (complete with a lethal selection of attachments) attempts to abduct the already abducted Elisa, to prosecute his vicious revenge plot against Vicente. At this point, Elisa starts to appreciate Chaney, since he seems to be the only mortal who can temporarily fight off El Corvo.

Frankly, co-star Marko Zaror’s fight choreography might just be some of the most intense and frequently brutal beatdowns genre fans have seen in years. (It ranks right up there with the bone-crushing Avengement, also starring Adkins.) This is the sort of film that will have you yelling “oomph” and “yow,” even if you are watching alone, in the privacy of your own home.

It also represents perfect casting. Obviously, Adkins and Zaror have all kinds of skills and moves. Adkins also has the right brooding earnestness for Chaney. Zaror’s severe screen presence sometimes makes heroic leads challenging, but his imposing physicality is perfect for El Corvo, who is like Lurch from The Adams Family, but with Matrix-level Kung Fu.

The Fist of the Condor, Starring Marko Zaror

El Guerrero is not yet as blind as Zatoichi, but his extremely light-sensitive eyes are irreversibly deteriorating. As a consolation, the same is true for his sworn rival, which makes sense, since that happens to be his twin brother Gemelo. Each wants to control the book that holds all the secrets of Rumi Maki, an ancient Incan martial art. Obviously, when it comes to this kind of knowledge, there can be only one. Both archetypal brothers are played by Chilean martial arts superstar Marko Zaror in Ernesto Diaz Espinoza’s The Fist of the Condor, which screens this Tuesday in Drafthouses theaters across the country.

The two brothers wanted to learn the ancient Condor-style martial art discipline from Mother Condor, but she only deemed El Guerrero worthy. However, Gemelo kept watching them outside the grounds of her school, biding his time. Now, Gemelo is a master and a criminal kingpin, but he still worries about what his brother might know.

For years, El Guerrero has trained for an inevitable showdown with his twin brother. He even abandoned his family, to live and train like a mystical nomad, sort of like Cain on Kung Fu, or any number of angsty martial arts protagonists.

It makes sense for Well Go USA to try to build the Chilean Zaror into the next big martial arts superstar. He is recognizable from the John Wick franchise and lacks the baggage of many of his colleagues or competitors from Hong Kong and Mainland China. Speaking solely for myself, I will no longer be covering films starring Donnie Yen or Jackie Chan. They have endorsed 7.5 million of their fellow Hongkongers losing their freedom to curry favor with the CCP. This makes them traitors to their homeland and total sell-outs. It is simply not acceptable.

That brings us back to Zaror, who has tremendous skills and an imposing screen presence. He might have to work on developing more leading man charisma, but the trippy, spiritual vibe of Fist shrewdly fits his muscular, bird-of-prey-like physicality. He can fight like crazy and brood like a house on fire. Yet, he clearly establishes very distinct personas for El Guerrero and Gemelo.

Green Ghost and the Masters of the Stone

Usually, you have to be born into a family of superheroes, like the Incredibles. Charlie Clark was unofficially adopted. They wanted to keep the superpower stuff away from the gringo, because he is a bit of a screw-up, but somehow it rubs off anyway. Now, they’ll have to work together to save their Nana, the world, and pretty much everything in Michael D. Olmos’s Green Ghost and the Masters of the Stone, which releases today on VOD.

Eons ago, there were aliens, stargates, stones of power, and whatever. Cut to the chase, Nana is a keeper of the power stone and she invested her grandchildren Marco and Karina with its power. When Clark was a boy, Nana took him in, because his own family was a mess. Then one night, Nana protected him from her rogue sister, the Sauron figure after the stone. He assumed it was all a dream, but obviously it wasn’t.

He was also touched in the process. To save Nana, Marco and Karina need grown Clark to awaken his qi and join it with theirs, but he will need a lot of quick training from the “Masters.” Even though Clark has served for years as cage-fighting Marco’s masked luchador-ish sidekick, the “Green Ghost” (not “gringo”), he still hasn’t picked up many skills.

It is easy to see Green Ghost was an ultra-microbudget DIY affair, but its energy level is infectious. You can practically envision co-screenwriter Clark, who plays a somewhat fictionalized version of himself (in terms adoptive family relationships) yelling out: “you guys, lets make this movie ourselves.” The thing is, they did and the generous helpings of martial arts action are not half-bad. In fact, they somehow recruited Chilean martial arts star Marko Zorar to play Drake, the champion warrior of the forces of darkness (and to sign-on as a producer).

Savage Dog: No Bark, All Bite

Evidently, there is some truth to the historical urban legend about the fugitive National Socialist coming to Indochina as a member of the French Foreign Legion. However, he is not the only dodgy foreign national taking advantage of the power vacuum left after the French retreat. With the American military yet to arrive in force, a veritable United Nations of thugs and mercenaries will fight among themselves in Jesse V. Johnson’s Savage Dog (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Sure, there is a plot to Savage Dog, but there is no question the film’s real attraction is getting to see Scott Adkins square off against Cung Le and Marko Zaror. We will not have to wait long to see the wanted IRA hitman Martin Tillman display his skills. Steiner, an ex-German Foreign Legion officer turned warlord, quite profitably keeps him as his personal pit-fighter. Eventually, Tillman earns his freedom, but he voluntarily returns to Steiner’s employment, because it is really the best work available in the 1958 Indochinese jungle.

Tillman unleashes his inner demons in the pit, but the beautiful Isabelle appeals to the better angels of his nature. She is the illegitimate daughter of Steiner and a local woman, whom the Nazi Bond villain has never acknowledged. Tillman starts to fall in love with her while temporarily working as a bouncer at the tiny tiki bar owned by Valentine, an American expat. Inevitably, Steiner and his Spanish enforcer Rastignac will rudely interrupt their brief respite with a violent power play. They will leave Tillman for dead, but he won’t be dead enough.

There is no question Adkins is currently one of the best in the martial arts cinema business. Throughout Dog, Johnson has the good sense to step out of the way and showcase the chops of his cast. The fight between Adkins’ Tillman and Cung Le playing a corrupt cop in Steiner’s employ is pretty impressive, but the climatic face-off against Rastignac (portrayed by Zaror with gleefully sinister flare) is a no-holds-barred barn-burner. While the ending of the Cung Le fight might slightly disappoint purists, the Zaror battle builds to a deliriously over-the-top got-to-see-it climax.

Arguably, Adkins has the sort of quiet brooding charisma of the great 1980s action stars. He also develops some rather touching romantic chemistry with Juju Chan’s Isabelle. However, it is somewhat frustrating Savage Dogs fails to capitalize on Chan’s real-life talents as a martial artist, merely casting her as a damsel in distress, much like the Roger Corman-produced Fist of the Dragon. On the plus side, Keith David (narrator of Ken Burns’ Jazz) comes to play as the flamboyant-in-a-cynical-world-weary-kind-of-way Valentine.

Basically, the purpose of Johnson’s narrative is to get Tillman from one fight to another. It works well enough and the period setting adds an intriguing dimension. Of course, all that really matters is the degree to which Adkins, Zaror, and Cung Le tear it up. Highly recommended for action fans, Savage Dog opens tomorrow (8/4) at the Arena CineLounge Sunset in LA and releases the following Tuesday (8/8) on iTunes.

Redeemer: Marko Zaror Smites Bad Guys

You could say this former hitman runs a particularly effective faith-based initiative. He will seek out the unjustly victimized that are pure of heart, to rain down payback on those who wronged them. In many cases, the faithful do not even know he has taken on their causes. He simply hears their prayers and answers them in Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s Redeemer (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

He was once a happily married killer by the name of Nicky Pardo, but he is now known simply as “The Redeemer.” He starts each morning with a refreshing round of Russian roulette. Every time he survives, he interprets it as sign the man upstairs still wants him to continue administering retribution in his name. Some really heavy business went down in his past, involving his nemesis, “The Scorpion.” Unbeknownst to the Redeemer, the Scorpion trails along after him, killing the innocent people the Redeemer set out to avenge, in elaborately Biblical fashion. That might sound terribly cruel, but he is not called the Scorpion because he likes to play patty-cake.

The Redeemer will have his work cut out for him when he blows into a seaside village dominated by a drug cartel. When he saves a sad sack fisherman from his drug trafficking tormentors, the syndicate essentially declares war on the vigilante. It will not work out so well for them, but it gives the Scorpion time to catch up with his prey.

When someone as hardnosed as the Redeemer offers you a chance to repent, you should probably take it. Conversely, taking him on is not such a hot idea, even you are part of a pack of six or seven thugs. Let’s face it, Redeemer is not the most sophisticated action film to strut into theaters, but holy cats, can Zaror fight. He has weird grappling style MMA moves like you have never seen before, all of which look awesome on screen. Frankly, Zaror never talks much, but he does not need to say a lot when his piercing eyes glower out from under his hoodie.

In many ways, Redeemer is like a throwback to the grittily effective but not exactly over-ambitious films that launched the careers of butt-kicking superstars like JCVD and even Bruce Lee. The narrative is a rather simplistic affair, intentional designed to keep out of the way of the action showcases (yet, somehow Espinoza manages to have three credit co-screenwriters. Seriously, how many scribes did it take to write “they squint at each other and then start fighting?”) It doesn’t matter. The martial arts is the thing in Redeemer, spectacularly choreographed by Zaror. In fact, there is a show-stopping one-on-one with a no-name henchman midway through the film that could easily stand as the climax of most action releases.

This is Zaror’s show, but José Luís Mósca is all kinds bad ass as the Scorpion, while American Noah Segan provides some legitimate, non-cringey comic relief as Bradock, the new Yankee cartel boss. It might be too unpolished for casual viewers, but for genre fans there is something refreshingly honest about a film like Redeemer. It is also one of the rare Chilean films old man Pinochet would probably have approved of. After all, what’s not to like about an ultra-devout vigilante? Recommended for action fans hungry for red meat, Redeemer opens this Friday (6/12) in New York, at the Cinema Village.