Rating: C+
Dir: Ernesto Díaz Espinoza
Star: Marko Zaror, Caterina Jadresic, Miguel Angel De Luca, Alejandro Castillo
We have a new #1 in the “Worst haircut belonging to a Chilean martial-arts actor” rankings. Replacing the previous champion, Marko Zaror in Diablo, we have… well, Marko Zaror in this. He’s sporting a Hispanic mullet, with red hair extensions sewn into it. Either this was actually a period piece set in the eighties, or tonsurial culture took a very long time to travel down to the bottom of South America. Is it significant that I may remember this element when most other details have been lost in the mists of time? Perhaps. Certainly, after a brisk and original start, this runs out of energy, and becomes rather too familiar to succeed.
Zamir (Zaror) is in love with Kim (Jadresic): unable to win her love, he has to content himself with beating up her boyfriend. Her dad Teran runs a martial-arts school, and was a friend of Zamir’s late father. But everything is thrown into carnage with the return of Max Kalba (de Luca), bearing a grudge for past events. He starts chewing through everyone connected to Teran. Zamir is the last hope of saving him and Kim, though will have to train his skills, beyond what he learned on the streets. To this end, he finds a teacher in José Soto (Castillo), and eventually gets a nifty pair of shoes with blades on the heels, which can counter Kalba’s vicious sword-cane. At least he loses the red rat-tails.
The opening is strong, with Zamir a quirky and unusual flawed hero. His more subtle efforts to court Kim are doomed to failure. He says to her “I saw you yesterday,” hoping she’ll ask where, so he can reply “In my dreams.” It goes horribly yet amusingly wrong, when she instead answers, “Obviously! You follow me everywhere I go.” Kalba makes for a good villain as well, looking like The Most Interesting Man in the World’s psychopathic younger brother. It’s a real shame when we enter the middle portion, where Zamir is training. All momentum is lost, and the film grinds to a complete and unentertaining halt for half an hour. Things rouse from their slumber for the expected face-off against Kalba; might be too late though.
There’s a grab-bag of references to be found here, most notably a soundtrack which swings from Ennio Morricone-like to actual David Bowie [the use of Modern Love, while effective, may have cost more than Zaror]. It works best in motion, the hero turning into a human blender when his “On” button gets pushed, and Zamir starts spinning with those heel daggers. The rest is considerably more of a mixed bag. Espinoza appears to be trying to make both a kung-fu flick and a teen romance – never mind that Zaror was 28 when making it, a little old for his character to be dating a schoolgirl. It’s a tricky combo to pull off, especially when you add apparent elements of parody, and is inconsistent in achieving its goals.