While Argentina seems to have the South American horror pretty much monopolized, you'll need to cross the Andes to get good action*. Chilean director Ernesto Díaz Espinoza and martial artist Marko Zaror can take credit for that with a trio of diverse and extremely entertaining action films (Kiltro, Mandrill, Redeemer; there's more, but I haven't seen them... yet).
The Fist of the Condor is something special, though. It's the rare traditional martial arts movie done outside of Asia... I can only think of Kill Bill or Enter the Dragon (if you ignore that was a Chinese co-production); Both of those seem to stretch the 'traditional' part of the definition, though - I'm thinking something that could be a mainstream Shaw Brothers or Golden Harvest picture.
It's all here, though: wall-to-wall philosophical ruminations, training montages (including a few non-traditional training methods), dramatic zooms, badass posing... varied fights, a monastic protagonist, a wealth of natural settings to frame the action. Stolen martial arts manuals. Ridiculous, themed moves and dialog that threads and weaves throughout the fighting.
The only thing missing is a terrible English dub, but luckily we've moved on beyond that.
The plot follows an unnamed warrior (bald-headed Zaror) who's embroiled in a long-running feud with his twin brother (shaggy, long-haired Zaror). Their conflict is over a manual detailing the long-lost martial arts of the Inca; It belongs by rights to the bald brother, who inherited it from his former master Condor Woman (Gina Aguad, Zaror's real life mother!) just before his brother killed her and stole the manual.
To make things a little more complicated, everyone thinks bald brother still has it - so he gets a couple of challengers coming up to him to try and earn it in combat.
The movie is fairly straightforward: bald brother takes care of a few opponents, works up the will to go against his shaggy, long-haired brother. Shaggy, long-haired brother sends his first apprentice (a lanky, menacing José Manuel, who also goes unnamed). And because the movie is subtitled Part One, that's pretty much it. There's a lot of voiceover narration as bald brother explains himself and his philosophy, and flashbacks to fill in a little of the sibling's complicated history, lots of glamour shots as people practice or wander in front of some beautiful natural setting or another. Lots of training montages.
Fights are gritty and relatively low-key (here's hoping they can break out the wire-fu in the next one), but also quick, brutal and exciting, and they very carefully frame Zaror's physique at all times. They're varied as well, each one pitting Zaror against a different style in an interesting arena of some sort (sandy beach, woodlands, abandoned building). That, and the mythic resonance of Espinoza's knowing, homage-ridden script make it feel a bit more epic than the meagre budget should allow... if you like this sort of thing; Otherwise, you're probably better off watching Mandrill.
Zaror is an imposing figure and a graceful fighter, but his acting is a little too wooden to anchor the film. Good thing he's got an easy-going charisma going for him; It doesn't make him playing the villain side of the dual role any easier, but it does make up for his monotone narration. There's also a sense of fun running through the film that belies the dead-serious script. It mostly surfaces in Rocco's soundtrack (it ranges from spaghetti western to butt-rock to disco, and is pretty effective), but the glee in each melodramatic reveal, every reversal or dramatic zoom is palpable. "Look," Espinoza, Zaror and co. seem to be saying: "this is what we like, and this is why we like it."
They make a pretty damn good case.
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