Marko Zaror on why he wanted to keep the action in his new sci-fi movie grounded

The past few years have been good to Chilean martial arts star Marko Zaror. After a memorable supporting part in John Wick: Chapter 4 and an even more memorable dual role in the excellent Shaw Brothers-style throwback The Fist of the Condor, Zaror has had supporting roles in The Killer’s Game and Fight or Flight, and stole the screen as the Anton Chigurh-meets-the-Terminator villain in Diablo.

His latest movie, Affinity, is his third 2025 release. Set in Thailand, it follows Bruno (Zaror), a depressed former soldier who blames himself for his brother’s death. Now working at a restaurant for his old CO (Louis Mandylor), Bruno becomes enmeshed in a wicked sci-fi scheme when an unconscious (and amnesiac) woman washes up at his house. Bruno and the woman fall for each other, but old faces from her troubled past threaten their newfound peace.

Zaror’s fingerprints are all over Affinity, which is now out on VOD platforms. In addition to starring as Bruno, he produced the movie through his company Zaror entertainment, has co-credits on the story and screenplay, and designed the action, which features plenty of his signature high kicks.

I spoke with Zaror about his work on Affinity, why it was important to him to design grounded action for a sci-fi setting, and what he wants to work on next.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

You wear a lot of hats in this movie – producer, star, action director, writer. What do you like about having that level of involvement in the movie, and what challenges come up from having to do so many different things?

Since I started my career, I have been involved in co-creating what we were doing, like Kiltro or Mirageman, and I like that. I like to express myself. When you're expressing yourself through a movie, if you’re just limited to being an actor, you do your role, and you perform. But you're expressing a story or something that came out from somewhere else, right? 

In this story, everything started from the idea of what would happen with the technology now where we're playing God. Are we going to be able to recreate the unique thing that we have as human beings? That is the connection, the affinity between two humans when they develop over time, with conversations, with actions – are we going to be able to replicate that? 

So we take this interesting dilemma, and we ask how we can make a fun and entertaining movie, but throw that question out there and see how people react to it. So then that's fun, because you have this vision, and then you get involved in questions like What’s the right cast for this? How do I make sure I develop that affinity in the movie between the main cast to deliver the message and ask the question? Getting involved in making those decisions is a lot of fun, I really like it.

How did you want Affinity’s action design to feel?

I wanted to stay honest to the story. I wanted to be real. I wanted to be direct, and I wanted every scene to feel like it's in a different stage of the character. That's why the character has a different approach to the fights. For example, the fight in the alley, he's just defending himself. He's a little lost and he doesn't know what's going on, versus what's happening later, when he just goes for it and is precise and just very aggressive.

I always wanted the fights to keep telling us the story of the arc of the character. You see the character is going through stages, so then the way he fights is different. And then keeping it very realistic, while adding a little bit of some flashy stuff, but making sure that doesn't take us away from the character and the story and the objectives of the scene.

The focus on grounded action is interesting to me because this is a sci-fi story, where often the action design avoids realism. Were there any specific inspirations you were pulling from in the sci-fi genre, or were you more focused on the real world?

I was really focused on the real world because I wanted to present this theme as believably as possible. I didn't want the fights and the style of the movie to take away from the feeling that this actually can be happening. If I start flowing flashy kicks and crazy choreography, then we're not going to be so attached, it could take us away from the realism of a guy that has this conflict. This is an emotional movie, so the fights needed to serve that purpose.

It’s sci-fi, but if you take it too far, then there's a detachment. I'm not a big fan of the crazy choreo that you don't feel that it could be happening. I love the stories where it’s more grounded. I think John Wick is a great example. You see some crazy things happening, but they're always on that edge, and then they take you a little bit higher. All the fights and all the action is very grounded, and suddenly you see this very spectacular thing, and you're like, Oh, wow. That could happen, or maybe not. Chad [Stahelski] is the master of that. 

The big challenge was how we can tell this story from Bruno's eyes, so the audience is with him all the time without discovering things before him or after him. Every camera angle when we're presenting a scene, the camera needs to discover along with Bruno. There’s a scene where I leave Athena at my house, and then I go to work and I come back. I didn't want to, for example, show the house with her sleeping and then see me arriving. That little detail is a big difference. I wanted to arrive with the camera, with the guy, so the audience doesn't know if the girl is going to be there. You wonder.

It’s been a terrific few years for you. After John Wick: Chapter 4 and Fist of the Condor, this year you’ve had Affinity, Fight or Flight, and Diablo. What are your priorities for what’s next for you?

I just want to keep creating, of course. I’m also doing auditions, but you never know. So I like to continue these two kinds of ways in the business, where I’m doing auditions for big movies but also co-creating and developing projects on my own. Fist of the Condor 2 is my dream project. I would love to do that, and I’m pushing Well Go [USA Entertainment], like Let’s do this. Everybody’s asking me about this movie. So hopefully that could happen soon. But yeah, just developing projects, and working on creating and finding cool stories to explore.

Marko Zaror recommends: Departures

This is a movie that's very powerful for me. It’s not action, it’s totally different. For some reason, I usually like to watch these types of movies. It’s very emotional. It talks about life, and it’s a beautiful movie.

Affinity and Departures are available for digital rental or purchase on VOD platforms.