Zaror stars as Zamir, the leader of a gang of thugs known as the Kiltros. More a gang of idle layabouts than a gang of criminals his time with the Kiltros leaves Zamir plenty of opportunity to obsess over Kim, the half Korean high school girl who he once saved from being raped and has been fixated on ever since. Kim, for her part, has no interest in Zamir beyond playing on his obsession for her own entertainment, at one point maneuvering him into fighting all the students of her father’s tae kwon do dojo simultaneously. When the villainous Max Kalba appears on the scene intent on taking his revenge against Kim’s father and his entire martial arts sect, who he blames for his dead wife’s infidelity, Zamir is drawn into a larger battle; forced to finally grow up and stand up to protect the people he cares about.

Kiltro takes a little while to get going with Zaror’s character underwritten in the early going as he is given little to do beyond glower and sulk while creepily obsessing over a girl significantly younger than he is. Once Kalba appears on the scene, however, we begin to get a better idea of what Zaror is capable of. An atypical martial artist in that he is built like a truck – he won major stunt awards for his work as The Rock’s body double in The Rundown – Zaror is nonetheless incredibly quick and agile, employing a unique leaping and spinning fight style. Once he abandons the slouching, sulking demeanor he carries through the first half hour it immediately becomes obvious that Zaror has a powerful screen presence and his martial arts skills are obvious. His skill level actually makes for an interesting problem for Espinoza, Zaror so clearly outclassing some of the other stunt performers that Espinoza is forced to shoot a little tighter and edit a little faster than would be ideal to make the others appear as fast as Zaror actually is.

With an elaborately plotted script and a sense of high style Kiltro’s reach occasionally exceeds its grasp, budget limits leading to a few notably sparse sets and some unfortunately poor CGI blood in the climactic final battle, which is otherwise spectacular. Espinoza makes excellent use of what he has, however, using dramatic Chilean landscapes to enormous effect and showing a willingness to dip into high theatricality with the use of painted backdrops – think Tears of the Black Tiger, though not quite so extreme – that I would love to see more of. Flawed though it may be in spots Kiltro does a huge number of things very, very well and I’ll happily take a film that aims high without quite getting there over a film that settles for the bare minimum any day of the week. And keep an eye out for Zaror, a talent this obvious won’t be denied for long. Kiltro is very clearly designed to be the first in a series of films, the origin story for a home grown Chilean martial arts hero. Would I pony up to see more Kiltro films, more of Zaror laying the beat down on assorted enemies? Damn straight I would.