Much like a big rock band touring with underrated and influential acts to help put them in the spotlight, the John Wickseries has always been a showcase for under-appreciated character actors and action stars. John Wick: Chapter 4specifically has loads of them, most notably Donnie Yen — though it’s tough to call him under-appreciated when he has the whole Ip Manfranchise and got a chance to be awesome in a Star Warsmovie. Now, if you want to see two more John Wick stars battle each other in an awesome action movie, you need to check out director Ernesto Díaz Espinoza’s Diablo, which has become a streaming hit on Prime Video.
Diablo stars Scott Adkins and Marko Zaror, who are both big names in the action movie genre. Adkins is an icon of so-called B-movie action flicks with titles like Avengement, Close Range, and, well, Diablo, which has led to him getting small appearances in bigger movies that call for awesome dudes who can do cool stuff (like Zero Dark Thirty, Doctor Strange, and, well, John Wick: Chapter 4). Zaror, meanwhile, is an accomplished martial artist with appearances in Machete Killsand Alita: Battle Angel, and he’s going to be one of the stars of Robert Rodriguez’s 100 Years— set to come out in November of 2115, and no, that’s not a typo.
Who Did Scott Adkins and Marko Zaror Play in ‘John Wick: Chapter 4’?
John Wick: Chapter 4 involved Keanu Reeves’ ever-vengeful, formerly retired assassin trying to survive an onslaught from a man called the Marquis de Gramont (Bill Skarsgård, playing a weirdo for once). Zaror played the Marquis’ second-in-command, a heavy with a suit and a goatee called Chidi who relentlessly pursues Wick like a tank until he makes the ultimate mistake that someone can make in a John Wick movie (he hurts a dog). Adkins, under some prosthetics, played Berlin crime boss Killa Harkan, a man who takes a truly brutal and protracted beating from Wick in his nightclub — and, perhaps less important, puts a truly deranged pronunciation spin on Wick’s nickname, “the Baba Yaga.”
Like all of the big-name guest stars in the Wick franchise, they both got a chance to hold their own against the man himself and advertise their skills as action actors and encourage viewers to check out their other films. Adkins probably fares better there, because his fight with Wick is incredible and he’s playing a very over-the-top, memorable character (not to mention that Killa Harkan, for all his evil, doesn’t try to hurt anyone’s dog), but that’s the advantage of both guys showing up in the same movie. You don’t have to pick one or the other.
What Is ‘Diablo’ About?
Like a lot of this kind of “it is what it is” action movies, the plot is really just an excuse to throw tough guys at each other and watch the rampage unfold. If you must know, though, Diablo is about a man who kidnaps the daughter of a mob boss (but for nice reasons). Adkins plays the man, with Zaror playing a dangerous killer hired to track them down. Also, this may be a spoiler, but Zaror’s character has freakin’ knife-hand that he hides under a fake fist, which is really cool.
Diablo has a 71 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which is good even if it’s not overwhelmingly positive, but the thing most of the critics seemed to agree on was that the movie shines when Adkins and Zaror are battling. That’s to be expected in a movie like this, though, so any complaints about the story or the acting shouldn’t bother you too much. If you want to see Chidi and a… fitter version of Killa Harkan try to kill each other, here’s your chance.
Diablo is available for streaming on Prime Video.
- Release Date
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June 13, 2025
- Runtime
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100 minutes
- Director
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Ernesto Díaz Espinoza
- Writers
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Mat Sansom
