Fist Of The Condor will commence the Alamo Drafthouse Fantastic Fest Presents series, opening exclusively in select Alamo Drafthouse locations on April 4 in the U.S.. Marko Zaror also will attend special screenings and live Q&A events at the Manhattan and Staten Island locations in New York City on April 4 and April 5, respectively, prior to the movie’s streaming release as a Hi-YAH! Original on April 7. Visit wellgousa.com for more information.
The longstanding partnership between John Wick: Chapter 4 co-star of late Marko Zaror and Chilean writer/director Ernesto Diaz Espinoza continues its reign to this day, as the duo puts itself in a position to stay the course with martial arts adventure, Fist Of The Condor. The first in a coming trilogy of films, the film is split into chapters which explains why it is that earlier plans proposed included a possible web series to start with. Totaling a little over eighty minutes for its runtime, the film stands lean and hearty enough in its execution, with characters and performances amply assembled to hold it all together.
The film sweeps dramatically as a meditative martial arts drama, culminating with a ploy that compels the audience to sympathize with our protagonists amid his journey – one of a man teetering between right and wrong as a distant rival now threatens to endanger everything he’s done to strive for betterment as a warrior. Predating this is a period set more than six years earlier, as Guerrero, only one of two twin brothers – dually played by Zaror – is taken in by The Condor Woman (Gina Aguad) for martial arts training along with her other two students.
The prize, as the film tells it, is a legendary manual containing the ancient secrets used by rebels to battle the Spanish conquistadors of the 16th century, handed to only the most passionate students by their masters. Said manual becomes the inevitable catalyst leading to the fallout between Guerrero and his embittered brother, Gemelo, who has otherwise been using his exile as an advantage, training covertly and in seclusion to become just as formidable a fighter, to essentially claim the manual for himself. Little does Guerrero know, however, that his brother’s lust for power and glory will force our hero to make a choice that could be the undoing of everything he’s worked for, leaving only to question if, in the six years he’s spent away from dueling, he’s truly prepared for his biggest fight to come.
Stylistic choices in camerawork and editing are parred for the course in the exceptional work of Espinoza and his team, and Zaror long since 2006’s Kiltro, in which the protagonist learns an original style using bladed spurs to take on a crime boss with a vendetta and an army of goons to match. There’s a total of four fight scenes, a few of which are broken up throughout the film’s progression while the rest of the action is illustrative of our protagonist’s growth over time; His regimen spans anywhere from resistance to reaction time, with exercises that are split into seasons, one which includes “the season of no legs”.
The remainder of the training dives deeper into the philosophical aspects meant to retain discipline, as the Condor style is only used when inevitable, and not to be applied for any personal challenge. One of the best lines in the film is attributed to this aspect of the film’s messaging, long after Guerrero’s internal quandary finds him questioning whether or not “the evil guest” still lingers. From the very top of the film, Guerrero’s quest is an ensnared one, far from the remote peace and solitude of his isolation as he’s routinely mistaken as the titular master of the Fist itself and challenged by one journeyman after another, thanks in large part to his brother’s transgressions.
This is precisely the kind of impasse in the fighters’ journeyman framework that makes Fist Of The Condor the time-honored martial arts fantasy fable that it is, harkening back to films like The Big Boss, or more Americanized products like The Perfect Weapon with actor Jeff Speakman as the bereaved modern-day warrior thrust into a mission he must decide means revenge or justice. Even Shunichi Nagasaki’s Kuro Obi (2007) takes a similar course as two karatekas on opposite sides of their shared martial ideology clash in a final battle that becomes powerfully transformative for at least one character.
Adding to the film’s cinematic action torque is the casting of Jose Manuel out of Puerto Rico, whose fight scene is the first in the film to kick things off. More than a year after etching a local milestone in the U.S. Commonwealth with its first martial arts indie thriller, El Testigo, and following up with action comedy Indie Guys and Pema Dhondup’s The Man From Kathmandu, Manuel takes his latest step closer toward the mainstream in a film rightly branded under the Well Go USA for a much-deserved career push after years of honing his craft with online short films. Actor Francisco Castro joins the fray in the film’s second fight sequence which is split in two as the film’s exposition continues onward, long prior to the on-screen tête-à-tête between Zaror and co-star Eyal Meyer, whose character promulgates his training and physicality via Kalari. Last and far from least in the cadre of notable faces of the genre in the last fifteen years is Yoon Man-soo who long after emerging as the disciplinary father of Zaror’s on-screen love interest in Kiltro, now joins the mix as a martial arts master whose own history with the Fist will place him squarely in the thick of things.
Topped with an aesthetic and craftsmanship that pays bits of homage to old-school kung fu cinema and the model spaghetti western, and veritable fight choreography that adheres to the world in which the viewer is seated ringside, and you get a film that you can wholly appreciate. The action and choreography are exquisitely packaged with a conceptual work that serves right the team of Zaror and Espinoza even as it’s been nearly ten years since the pair brought El Redentor (Redeemer) to life, so much so that it bears exactly the look and feel of a martial arts thriller that compliments the kind of graphic novel hype once demanded by the likes of Tony Randel’s treatment of Fist Of The North Star, and even Bruce Khan’s own love letter to the niche with the ballistic fisticuffs and martial leadfoot leaps and bounds of fight-heavy island thriller, Revenger.
Simpler terms would garner Fist Of The Condor quotes deeming it as a love letter to throwback martial arts and westerns and Bruce Lee. Yes, the Bruce love is as present as it is inexorable, and thankfully, all the more accommodates what Zaror and Espinoza strive for with Fist Of The Condor. More to the point though, it’s a film that concentrates all its efforts on presenting itself with cohesion and substance that you needn’t be too concerned with wondering if the team behind the film cared. It’s the kind of mindfulness and ethos exuded in a lot of other films including the ones I mentioned, as well as even Joey Ansah’s Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist. Alas, Fist Of The Condor is peak martial arts cinema at its finest, and with Zaror and Espinoza steadfast with more to come, I am here for it.
