South American soap operas, Rocky, Kill Bill, Martial Arts, Spaghetti Westerns?
If you like this combo, then you'll like Chile's KILTRO. This was not only my first Chilean martial-arts film i've ever seen, but it was also my first Chilean movie that i've seen. After reading many praising reviews of this film for over a year, I kept my expectations in check and expected the film to be decent - and it is. Kiltro isn't an amazing or original film, but the film is worth watching. If this was an American film, I would probably just rent it. But this is a "Chilean Martial-arts flick!" So, it's worth buying the DVD just on that alone. The direction and acting is pretty top notch for this type of genre. The main actor, Marko Zaror, is an okay actor, certainly not as charismatic as his movie body double - The Rock. Marko reminds me of a cross between Sly Stallone and an ogre. It's amazing how fast he can move. He has some fight scenes in the film (about 3-4 big ones), but they are very well choreographed and not cut too quickly. During fight scenes, there's some CGI blood splattered all over the place, which could be annoying like in the recent Zatoichi film. Since the story is good - Marko stalking/awkwardly trying to get the main actress to fall in love with him (she looks like Jessica Alba) and also the soap opera love triangle involving a woman involved with two different martial arts sects/school masters - the movie moves along at a highly entertaining pace. The soundtrack is pretty interesting too - it rotates between cheesy 80s love songs to good Ennio Morricone-type spaghetti western music. And the cinematography is great too, with some nice shots of Chile - looks like a great place to visit.


The Region 1 NTSC DVD, produced by Magnet, is not bad considering how long people have waited for an English-subtitled DVD. The anamorphic video ranges from eye-popping to looking like ass. Sunny day scenes look razor sharp, while some indoor/dark scenes look like a tiny step up from a VHS tape - very grainy and blurry. Furthermore, at times the video quality looks like it's shot on HD, while other times, it looks like it's shot with a home video camera from the 80s. The audio, on the other hand, is pretty decent sounding - DD 5.1/2.0 Spanish or English, with optional English subtitles. The extras include two pointless deleted scenes, funny bloopers (but not too many), a 7-minute Behind the scenes, and the most interesting - storyboards and fight training. Marko Zaror certainly pushes himself to be the best athlete. He's so ******, but he moves very fast.


KILTRO is worth seeing, especially for its Chilean flavor. One of these days, I want to watch a marathon of countries which just made their first martial-arts film, such as: The Challenge (Germany), Divine Intervention (Palestine, well there is one cool ninja scene in the flick), Jade Warrior (Finland), Anniyan (India), and Tongan Ninja (New Zealand). I'm now looking forward to seeing Marko Zaror's next film - Mirageman - coming out later this year.

Movie: 7.5
DVD Video: 6.5
DVD Audio: 8
DVD Extras: 6