Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Claire Dunne One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Leofwine_draca I'm always one for a good martial arts flick, so when I saw the DVD box for KILTRO I was excited. "The best...since Ong Bak" it proclaimed, underneath a picture of a muscle guy in some weird mask pulling off a typical kung fu move. The blurb has five shots of a weapon-wielding hero tackling a street gang, warning of strong bloody violence and looking absolutely fab. So I bought it, took it home and...Found out that the box was a lie. The action shots on the back – ALL of them – come from one single, five-minute fight sequence at the film's climax. This isn't an action film as all, more of a romance. There are virtually NO fight scenes in the film aside from that one big set-piece, and even that one isn't too good, with obvious wire work and some pretty awful CGI blood effects. Instead, we get some sappy story about an idiot member of a street gang and his stalker obsession with a pretty Korean girl. Soon enough there's a bad guy killing some people, and this idiot guy must go and train and then fight him, blah blah blah...the kind of story that's been done to death.The novelty here is that this is a Chilean film – and for me, like many others I suspect, my first Chilean movie. Sadly, this lacks none of the expressiveness or style in the similarly South American CITY OF GOD: instead, it's content to rip-off Hollywood with an inappropriate spaghetti western soundtrack, cardboard sets, and a whole dearth of imagination and interest. The characters are boring, the actors bad, and the storyline sucks. Why we're supposed to care about any of this, I don't know.The biggest disappointment lies with the hero, Marko Zaror. Now, Zaror isn't much of an actor: his facial expressions are often amusing rather than believable, and his street thug character offers the viewer no sympathy whatsoever. But, to be honest, that's par for the course for an action flick. The crime is that Zaror is a great fighter in his few brief moments of action, so why on earth didn't the director utilise that talent more, rather than focus on his acting? ONG BAK this isn't: that film was perfect in recognising Tony Jaa as a fine martial artist, throwing him into the midst of fight or chase scenes all the while, but KILTRO goes the opposite way and is just dull as a result. Dull as dishwater in fact. Let's hope that Zaror finds himself a director who recognises this big guy's appeal and casts him in more appropriate roles.

NICO Kiltro is one of the extremely few Spanish movies having to do with the topic of martial arts. The approach taken by Ernesto Díaz Espinoza to produce such a peculiar movie was one of comedy brought about by fictitious exaggeration. The characters created by Espinoza are very corny and seem to have been taken right from other movies and dropped into present day Chilean society. Such characters as the dwarf and the faraway teacher give off the impression that Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, from Star Wars, have stepped into the movie. Even though many situations were forced and fights were exaggerated in order to add more action and excitement to the film, one can find appreciation in the comedic aspect of it. South Americans can especially enjoy the different cultural aspects which can be seen amidst the fantasy of the story. For example, the drinking of "mate" when Zamir is being trained by Jose Soto in the desert, stood out to me as something which you would not expect in a martial arts movie unless it was in South America. Although not a very high caliber movie, Kiltro definitely can serve as an entertaining and admirable movie.

grandmastersik Hmm, so, having played up the stereotypes of Latino amour: passion, obsession and blood-searing rage, this one basically makes a bit of a hash of the script, with some Serrano Family-like boy-talk, lots of jumps and kicks, a bit of hit-and-miss humour and a stunning leading lady whom I personally had trouble taking my eyes off of!The story is simple yet bizarre in its flash-backs and editing and where Zamir - the "hero" - can either be interpreted as a stalker or loved-up boy without a clue as of how to express himself (just as the beautiful Kim can be called either the ingénue unsure how to prompt Zamir, or a total bitch and tease), it all equates to a bit of fun to add something extra to an otherwise two-dimensional plot (not to mention laugh-out-loud memories of Zamir punching out any man who dares so much as look at her!).Other users here may see this and HATE the computer-animated blood effects poorly tacked on afterwards to give the film a bit of wholly unnecessary gore, but bare in mind that this flick is incredibly low budget, don't allow this and some of the terrible studio backdrops to ruin it for you and you'll find a film that just wants to kick a lot of butt and have a lot of fun in the process.Still, budget restraints aside, the final shot of Zamir walking off into the painted sunset, clearly not making any ground on the running machine he's made walk upon just has to be intentionally funny.I was going to give this film a 7 for effort but a 6 is about right - just keep an eye open for the impressive Marko Zaror, who deserves a brighter future. For Caterina whatever-her-name-is (okay, Jadresic) who plays Kim, I'll rate it a 10.

crsj1981 I just saw the movie and thought it was good in general. I have to point out that this type of movie is completely new for us over here, I mean it's the first martial arts movie made in Chile, so my hat is off to the people who decided to make this movie. The highlights of the movie are the fights which are pretty cool and showcase the abilities of M. Zaror (The Rock stunt double) very well. He no doubt can kick some ass. The movie is full of hints to other martial arts movies and series, like "Kung Fu", "Drunken Master" or the "Kill Bill" type music, for instance. The movie has also a lot of humor just like the Asian martial arts movies.If the fights were a little longer, and the plot a little more polished, then this would have been a very promising movie. Even with those rough points, the movie is good for being the first of its kind in Chile. Marko Zaror is probably the best martial artist I have seen in a movie that isn't of Asiatic descent. I rated it with a 9 for being the first movie of it's kind, I found it was pretty good. It reminded me a lot of the Korean martial arts movies (fast paced fights like the ones in "Ong-Bak"). A must see for martial arts fans.