Hell to Pay: Diablo (2025) Review

Director: Ernesto Díaz Espinoza

Notable Cast: Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror, Alanna de la Rosa, Diana Hoyos, Lucho Velasco

At this point, if you wanted to add Scott Adkins or Marko Zaror to any film, I’m there. Put both of them in? Well, shake me down and steal my lunch money, cause you can have it. Watching these two duke it out cinematically on screen since Undisputed III might be one of the best things in action cinema in the last 15 years (even when they don’t fight but share the same film like in John Wick 4). For their latest film, Diablo, Zaror is bringing along long-time director and collaborator Ernesto Díaz Espinoza (notable for Redeemer and Fist of the Condor), and the results are as smashingly high-octane as one would hope. 

Birds Don't Have Fists: Fist of the Condor (2023) Review [Hi-Yah!]

Director: Ernesto Díaz Espinoza

Notable Cast: Marko Zaror, Marko Zaror, Eyal Meyer, Gina Aguad, Fernanda Urrejola, Man Soo Yoon, Jose Manuel, Cristian Garin, Francisco Castro

 

When I told my wife that I had a new movie to watch the other night, she asked the question that most people ask. “Which one?” I replied, “Fist of the Condor. The new kung fu movie starring Marko Zaror.” She paused for a moment. “Well, that doesn’t make sense. Birds don’t have fists.”

She’s a funny one, that gal. 

 

On the one hand, she’s absolutely right. Condors are big badass birds, but they certainly don’t have fists. In true, classic kung fu fashion, it doesn’t really matter though when the animal is just an inspiration for the martial arts. Condors don’t need fists... because you know who does have fists? Marko fuckin’ Zaror. And he’s bringing his own martial arts style to the screen in that classic kung fu manner. It just so happens that he has the perfect physique that he looks like a condor when he extends his arms into a full wingspan. Just before he starts handing people their asses. 

 

A Man with a Cause: John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023) Review

Director: Chad Stahelski

Notable Cast: Keanu Reeves, Donnie Yen, Bill Skarsgard, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, Lance Reddick, Clancy Brown, Hiroyuki Sanada, Shamier Anderson, Rina Sawayama, Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror

 

At one point leading into the final portion of John Wick: Chapter 4, Clancy Brown’s Harbinger warns the big bad of the film, The Marquis - played with a seething and conniving performance by Bill Skarsgard, that a man’s ambition should never exceed his worth. The moment is one to indicate that, despite the villain’s endless amount of resources and skilled killers, The Marquis is still over his head in trying to kill John Wick. Yet it’s also the same warning that echoed my worries for this fourth entry.

 

Would the ambitions of the John Wick franchise eventually exceed its worth?

 

With John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, one could see the ambitions for building the globe trotting world start to stretch to the point of excess. Not that the film is inherently bad, nay, but it is one where some of the choices for plot and narrative felt the strain.

 

With John Wick: Chapter 4, the series addresses those (including an opening sequence that neatly ties an open thread with a bullet point of finality) and then proceeds to grow the series in scope while going back to the thematic and narrative points about the character that made this franchise explode with audiences. It’s a cinematic magic trick of epic proportions. It balances its emotional parallels for the character while simultaneously giving the viewer the biggest and most ambitious entry yet. If the ambitions were exceeding the worth, Chapter 4 grows the worth to match those ambitions. The results are glorious and punctuated with the viciousness of a napalm loaded shotgun blast.

 

Savage Dog (2017)

Director: Jesse V. Johnson

Notable Cast: Scott Adkins, Marko Zaror, Keith David, Juju Chan, Cung Le, Vladimir Kulich, Charles Fathy, Matthew Marsden, Sheena Chou, Luke Massy

Some legends are born and others are made. For a film like Savage Dog, the idea of crafting a legend is central to its story and one that finds itself repeated throughout Keith David’s shockingly effective voice over narrative. It also seems to be the intent of its cast and crew in the bigger spectrum of making an action film that stands out from the rest. For B-action movie connoisseurs, Savage Dog has already developed hype and status. Jesse V. Johnson has accumulated a stunning modern action cast and gives the film a unique period piece setting to let them loose. On those three things (director, cast, and concept) the film already seems poised to be one of the cult classics of the year and perhaps one of its sleeper hits. While the ambitions of Savage Dog occasionally outpace its own boundaries which may not lift the film into the upper echelons of action filmmaking in a specific regard, the film partners those ambitions with a lot of memorable and fascinating approaches that make it one of the more interesting films one is likely to see this year, simply in its blending of genres and intent. It’s a film about legends and for fans it just may reach the next step towards becoming one with its action set pieces, screen devouring cast, and great concept.