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Marko Zaror’s ability to amaze action fans is beyond incredible, and he brings that talent into the spotlight once more with his new martial arts films Fist of the Condor. Directed by Zaror’s frequent collaborator Erenesto Diaz Espinoza, Fist of the Condor debuts on the martial arts-centric streaming platform Hi-YAH! on Friday, April 7. For martial arts fans, Fist of the Condor is packed with amazing fight scenes, and is a passionate tribute to martial arts on film and in life.
In Fist of the Condor, a group of martial artists from different styles and nationalities are each in pursuit of a book said to impart ancient wisdom about fighting and using the human body to its fullest potential. Gemelo (Marko Zaror) is also interested in seizing the book’s knowledge, and it is up to his twin brother Guerrero (also Marko Zaror) to defeat his oncoming opponents to keep the book’s knowledge from falling into the wrong hands. Zaror’s performance as the heroic Guerrero in Fist of the Condor and his prior work in martial arts films even led to him being inducted into the “Fists of Legend” Wall of Fame at the State Island Alamo Drafthouse earlier this month.
We speak to Marko Zaror on the making Fist of the Condor, his influences in the creation of the film, and the challenges presented in filming during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mark Zaror Talks Fist of the Condor
Screen Rant: How did Fist of the Condor come about?
Marko Zaror: It all happened during quarantine in the middle of COVID. I was kind of trapped in Chile, because I was living in L.A. but I went to visit my family, and then I had to stay on a beach house when COVID hit. I was thinking about what I’m going to do with my life. I thought it was the end and there’s no more movies, but there was an intuition that told me ‘You’ve got to continue, you’ve got to train!’, and I built a little gym there to keep training and meditate a lot. I got inspired, and I called Ernesto and said ‘Look, I know this is crazy, but we have to do something, we have to tell this story. I want to do a love letter of martial arts as a thanks of being inspired and to be able to have this journey as a human being, thanks to the inspiration of this genre.’
I wanted to give back and share my journey with the people that follow me, so I gave him all my notes from my nutrition, my training, my philosophy over all these years, and I said ‘We’ve got to do an homage to the genre, like a love letter’. Then he wrote the script, and it was an amazing script. I read it, and I was just like ‘We’ve got to do this, we have to shoot it!’
So, without any expectation, we just were able to start shooting, and we did the film without knowing what was going to happen. And when things started opening up, then little by little, things started happening. I was able to come back to L.A., and I forwarded this trailer to some friends, then I got a call from Chad Stahelski, who offered me a role in John Wick: Chapter 4. And that kind of changed the game, because this movie that we did in Chile, I was like ‘Oh, I’ve got to try to put it out there’, and that’s how I came across Well Go and Hi-YAH!, and they saw the film and decided to take it, and that was very cool. I’m so excited!
In terms of the pandemic, what was the timeline for the making of Fist of the Condor?
Marko Zaror: It was almost a year into the pandemic when we started shooting. It was a six-month prep, and it took a long time to shoot, because it was quarantine, so we would shoot one week, and then stop, and then prep, and then wait for the right moment to continue shooting. So, that was a big challenge.
Fist of the Condor has some incredible fight scenes, and as you said, is such a love letter to martial arts. What would you say were some of your big influences?
Marko Zaror: Well, Bruce Lee has always been a big inspiration to me. You can see Bruce Lee through the movie, for sure. For me, it was really about trying to make an honest expression of my journey, and I wanted to communicate that. But also, through the movies that inspired me, like of course, all the Bruce Lee movies, Jackie Chan, The Flying Guillotine, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Snake in the Eagle’s Shadow, these kinds of films really inspired us as kids to train and to try things.
The challenge was not to mimic or to copy, but to make it original from Latin America, and incorporate a new style that I use as a martial artist and how I adapt different things. The wooden dummy, for example, it wasn’t just designed for Wing Chun with the two sticks, but I also added the high sticks on it because I had done MMA and you have different blocks. So, I kind of modified the wooden dummy to my style, my way, and my journey as a martial artist. The same with the mobility and the techniques and all the acrobatics, to create the Fist of the Condor style. The condor is our animal from Chile, so it was cool to play and experiment with those movements.
One of your opponents in the movie, Eyal Meyer, is also an exponent of India’s martial art, Kalaripayattu. Had you always wanted to bring Kalaripayattu into Fist of the Condor?
Marko Zaror: Well, we got lucky, because when I was prepping the movie, I was thinking ‘Who’s going to be the villain in this? We need an actor, but also we need a good martial artist.’ I came across Eyal because he’s done soap operas in Chile, but he’s also a martial artist, and he’s a master at Kalari, and it was cool, because Kalari is like the origin of martial arts, and it could perfectly be part of the process of the Fist of the Condor. It just worked perfectly, and the movements are so unique and different, so it was a big challenge to bring him in and also teach him screen fighting and how we can adapt those techniques to work in a fight scene today.
People are more educated on fighting today. With some of the old fighting movies, people who don’t know martial arts understand what a hand-lock or an arm-lock or a choke are, because they’ve seen so much UFC now and it’s so popular. So, how can you bring these elements and make them believable in today’s world and the way the industry is today. So, that was a big challenge, but I was lucky that Eyal came across the path.
The credits of the movie also list it as Fist of the Condor, Part 1. What can you share about the plans going forward with Fist of the Condor Part 2 and what is the idea for that?
Marko Zaror: I would love to! I would love to, and it’s going to depend on you guys. This is a movie for the fans, and I would love to keep doing it. I’m lucky that Well Go with Hi-YAH! took the movie and are going to distribute the movie in the U.S., and if the movie does good and you guys support it, we’re going to be doing the second part really soon. It’s all about you guys, and we definitely want to continue developing the story of the character.
As you mentioned earlier, Fist of the Condor also led to you boarding John Wick: Chapter 4. What was it like doing all the fight scenes and the action with Keanu Reeves and Donnie Yen?
Marko Zaror: You can imagine, man, it was just an amazing experience for me! Working with Chad and Keanu was so inspiring, to see these two guys who are so talented. Chad is a real martial artist, and when you have a real martial artist behind the camera, it’s a totally different deal, and having a real martial artist behind the camera on a big-budget movie like this, it’s just a different thing. Of course, Keanu, he’s such a passionate guy and fan of the genre. He puts so much into it, so much hard work and so much discipline into making it perfect, and it was very inspiring.
Fist of the Condor debuts on Well Go USA’s streaming platform Hi-YAH! on Friday, April 7.
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