| “ | Monk, you may be good, but you are not bulletproof. | „ |
| ~ Struker |
Struker is the main antagonist of the 2003 action comedy film Bulletproof Monk, as well as the film's novelization.
With the help of his granddaughter and chief henchwoman Nina, Stucker made it his life's work to track down a Tibetan monk who safeguarded an ancient mystical scroll. He intended to use the scroll's nigh-limitless power to restore his youth and achieve world domination.
He was portrayed by Karel Roden, who also played Mikhail Faustin and The Fixer in Grand Theft Auto IV, Emil Slovak in 15 Minutes, Carter Kounen in Blade II, Anzor Yugorsky in Running Scared, Yuri Gretkov in The Bourne Supremacy and Viktor Frankenstein in Frankenstein's Army.
Biography[]
Struker arrives at the Temple of Sublime Truth with his Nazi men where the Scroll is located. Attacking the temple, he asks the monks blocking him to move away, on the pretext that he will spare them, but they refuse. So he has them all shot by his men. Entering the temple, he is attacked by a Capuchin monkey while his men are mysteriously defeated by a monk. Not finding the manuscript, he returns outside, sees the monk and asks him to return the Scroll to him. But the monk refuses and Strucker shoots him. The monk drops into the cliff after being shot. Strucker looks down but doesn't see the body, assuming the monk made it out alive.
60 years later, Strucker, bound to a wheelchair, visits Nina, his granddaughter, who tells him that she and her men have lost track of the Monk. Struker laments that he is surrounded by weak and incompetent men, and that he doesn't have much time left to live. He says he wants to have the Scroll to rejuvenate and cleanse the Earth of "lower races". Nina assures him that she has men combing the city for the monk.
Nina and her men seemingly succeed in another chase to get the scroll, but it turns out to be a fake - in actuality, the 'scroll' is nothing more than a noodle soup recipe. He threatens to kill Nina if she continues to fail him, saying that the fact that she's his granddaughter will not save her. After a descent into a Buddhist lair where the Monk has taken refuge, the occupants are captured and Strucker shows them a machine running on water which extracts information by probing the brain. He tests its operation on a monk who sold out the hero and his fellow monks to share the power of the scroll, but the traitor has no useful information. Strucker orders the search for the monk to continue, leaving the traitorous monk dead.
When the monk is finally captured, he is brought in front of Struker who expresses his envy towards him, because he is lost. Saying that everything needs to change, he begins to recite the text of the scroll tattooed onto the monk's body after it's been scanned onto a large screen by Nina. However, the monk's sidekicks Jade and Kar suddenly storm Strucker's lair, forcing him to send Nina and her men to go resolve the situation. While Nina is busy engaging Jade in a vicious duel to the death, Strucker finishes reciting the scroll and stands from his wheelchair, running to a mirror and seeing himself be rejuvenated. He leaves to recite the last verse, but finds that it is missing. He asks the monk where the missing verse is and the monk smugly claims him he memorized it, in case someone like Strucker ever managed to get this far. Furious, the former Nazi decides to use his machine to extract the last verse of the scroll from his mind. While preparing the machine, Kar, coming from the water pipes, attacks Struker - but thanks to his newfound powers, he sends the youth sprawling to the ground. He then leaves to physically beat the monk, but Kar, coming to himself, attacks him from behind. The hero hits him in the face but Struker is unaffected. Strucker retaliates by sending Kar into the wall where a hunk of pipe nearly impales him. Thankfully, Kar is narrowly saved by the monk. Jade arrives late due to a run-in with Strucker's murderous granddaughter. Although Nina managed to delay Jade's arrival, Jade ultimately got the better of her, breaking the henchwoman's leg and beating her to near-unconsciousness before snapping her neck.
While Jade works to free the other monks, the fight with Strucker leads the three up the roof of the building. Strucker picks up Kar and hurls him before trying to do the same with the Monk, who manages to counter his attack and throw him close to Kar. The latter fights against the Nazi who ends up throwing him into a hole. He then fights against the Monk, trying to hit him and when he can't, he takes an iron staff and resumes. They eventually reach a platform and after several minutes of intense battle, the Monk is in difficult position, standing on the platform’s structure who is above the street. Struker threatens to kill him if he doesn’t give him the last verse but realizing the Scroll will be lost forever if he kills the Monk, he grabs Kar, who came back to help the Monk, and threatens to let him fall to his death. Unfortunately for Struker, Kar, inspired by the Monk who says that he can beat him, strikes him and manages to counter the gravity therefore preventing him to fall. Going back on the roof, he pushes Struker with his feet. The villain is about to fall but the Monk prevents him to fall. Struker, knowing his defeat, decides to take the Monk with him to his death given he can’t have the last verse of the Scroll. He tries to lure the Monk into his fall as the Monk still tries to save Struker, reminding him that he's had 60 years to change. Struker refuses to listen and says he will never change. Struker loses his grasp and falls on electric threads.
However, Strucker survives the fall. He ambushes the heroes when they are in the Human Rights Organization’s hall and attempts to gun the trio down. Kar however, runs through him while avoiding the bullets and knocks him into a statue under construction, which collapses on top on him, crushing him to death and causing his body to age again.
Personality[]
Struker embodies and carry fully the Nazi ideology, wanting to eliminate the races that he considers inferior. He is described by the Monk as a man who is obsessed with the past. He has gone though sixty years without abandoning his goal. Even when the Monk saves his life and explains that he has given him the chance to change his ways, Struker absolutely clings to his evil ways and decides to take the hero with him to the grave thus proving he is ungrateful and beyond any redemption. He is also intolerant of failure, even telling Nina that the fact she is his grandaughter only protect her for so long.
Gallery[]
