John Wick 4

John Wick 4

“Friendship means little when it’s convenient” – Shimazu (John Wick 4)

Wow, we’ve reached “John Wick 4″… someone might think “now it can only recycle old material, can’t be better than previous parts.”

It turned out it can.

“John Wick 4” is the best part so far! 🙂

Brother John really doesn’t have it easy. He just can’t find peace. First Russians steal his car and kill his dog. Then comes the Italian mafia who stabs him in the back and turns the entire underworld against him, with all the “High Table” bigwigs. And just when it seemed a truce would come, he experienced betrayal from Winston, who shot him and let him fall from the hotel building.

But John survived all that… somehow… with help from the eccentric Bowery King.

And now he’s preparing for revenge. One against all. The “High Table” which rules the entire criminal underworld is his target. And first in the crosshairs is the Elder, who “sits above the High Table.”

However, the “High Table” doesn’t plan to meet John’s wrath unprepared either. They send one of their members, Marquis Vincent Bisset de Gramont to solve the problem called “John Wick,” giving him unlimited resources at his disposal.

The eccentric and arrogant (and psycho) Marquis immediately starts the task. He calls hotel manager Winston and his faithful concierge Charon with the latest news. Since John Wick survived after all, the Marquis declares Winston excommunicado and takes away all his privileges, blows up his hotel and before his eyes kills Charon, sending a clear message he’ll wipe from the face of the Earth everything connected to John Wick.

And on top of all that, the Marquis brings blind Caine out of “retirement,” a former “High Table” assassin, to eliminate John Wick. Caine would never agree to this (because John is his old friend) if the Marquis hadn’t blackmailed him that he’d kill his daughter.

Meanwhile, John tries to find temporary shelter at the “Continental” hotel in Osaka, run by his friend Shimazu Koji (and his daughter Akira, who’s not thrilled with the idea of providing refuge to a fugitive). However, the Marquis’s right hand Chidi soon arrives with his army (and Caine moreover), sending a clear message that the Osaka hotel will no longer be in use either (deconsecrated), after which a small war breaks out within the hotel.

As if John doesn’t have enough problems with Caine, Chidi and his thugs, he’s constantly followed from the shadows by Mr. Nobody and his dog, who occasionally eliminate John’s opponents. However, Nobody isn’t John’s friend, but simply patiently waits for John’s head value (bounty) to “jump” above the current 18 million dollars.

Meanwhile, John somehow manages to reach New York, where he’s found by his (non)friend Winston, who proposes to John to put an end to all this by calling on the old “High Table” tradition and challenging the Marquis to a duel with revolvers, and if he wins, he’d be free. But to challenge the Marquis to a duel, he must have support and belonging to some criminal organization. And so our Jardani (remember his real name?) heads to Berlin to beg the “Ruska Roma” organization to take him back under their wing…

And whether they’ll (and under what conditions) take him under the “Ruska Roma” wing and whether the fateful duel will be realized, you’ll find out if you watch “John Wick 4” (“John Wick: Chapter 4”). 🙂

The fourth part of the franchise simply raised everything to a higher level.

As for locations, John’s path will lead from New York, through Berlin to Osaka (Japan, yay!) and finally Paris. And each location will, thanks to excellent cinematography, be a phenomenal story unto itself. I was especially delighted by the presentation of the Japanese “Continental” hotel, as a blend of modern and traditional.

And the action… man… they simply went with the motto “more and better and non-stop.” John Wick’s enemies now constitute an elite not so easily killed by simple “confirmation” with a bullet in the head. John’s former colleagues themselves wear suits that can stop bullets and are quite agile and ruthless in combat, and there are moreover “High Table” soldiers in special combat suits and helmets… and let’s not forget specially “problematic” and hard to eliminate characters like the Marquis’s right hand Chidi, agile and unpredictable Caine, lurking Mr. Nobody and his bloodthirsty dog, or chubby (and brutal) Killa Harkan.

John will no longer be selective when it comes to (brutal) means and places for eliminating opponents, and each of them is madness in a special way. Shootouts and beatings within the hotel, on the street, car chase in a circle (and shooting moreover) around the Arc de Triomphe during rush hour traffic in the opposite direction (!) or climbing up 222 steps of Montmartre (to the Basilica of the “Sacred Heart” where the duel should be), full of assassins he’ll have to eliminate with hands and feet and firearms and cold weapons. A special treat for action lovers is the (perhaps in the future cult) scene where John fights his way from room to room of an abandoned building and shoots with dozens and dozens of opponents, and the camera is always positioned above John’s head and gives us a view of the action from “bird’s eye view” or, if you’ve ever had contact with video games, will associate you with the top-down shooter genre (actually, director Chad Stahelski himself says he was inspired to create that scene precisely by this game).

And will John get beatings in this film, he will indeed… they’ll shoot at him from all kinds of firearms, fists and feet will fly at him, he’ll fall several floors, be hit by cars dozens of times (they really seem to love “doing” that to him), will fall down countless stairs… and moreover he has no health insurance…

Speaking of the director, the man really hats off, he knows how to make over-the-top action films. The man in a short time showed he understands what the audience wants in action films, and became a recognizable name in Hollywood… and is already working on many new interesting projects!

Visually, the film is still dark, noir, raw yet elegant. You’ll see the brilliance of Osaka and the “Continental” hotel, the psychedelic nature of the Berlin nightclub and the elegance of Paris… there’s everything.

From a musical aspect, the film also maintains excellent tempo with a great soundtrack. Aside from the now traditional main song, but when you hear this on quality speakers… wow!

And now let’s touch on the cast, and for good reason…

Brother Keanu is in his element. Period. I mean, I really don’t know what I should add. The man is so dedicated to this franchise and the character of John Wick, that I’ll now associate him more with this character than with Neo (“Matrix”), it seems. Simply an excellently done job for an action film.

And we’ll mention right at the start (for the record, because they had smaller roles) Ian McShane as the poetic (former) hotel manager Winston, now deceased legend Lance Reddick as the always calm Charon, as well as quirky Laurence Fishburne and his unique role of dramatic Bowery King.

And now let’s turn to some new faces, which are also pleasant surprises that raised the film’s quality.

The main villain, eccentric Marquis Bisset, is played by talented Bill Skarsgård (“It,” “It: Chapter 2”) who clearly showed he has talent to play villains and nicely portrayed the irritating and arrogant (but covertly insecure) Marquis who doesn’t choose (others’) means to solve his problems. Though many, due to his dedication to roles, see him as the new Bruce Wayne/Batman, the man could without problem play Lex Luthor too (much better than his predecessor, no doubt about that).

Donnie Yen (brilliant “IP Man” tetralogy, “Star Wars: Rogue One,” “Kung Fu Killer,” “Kill Zone”) as Caine… for me he’s one of my favorite Asian actors and I put him in the same pantheon of actors/martial arts masters like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Stars in Asia who are quite famous in Hollywood, but have difficulty getting real opportunities due to stereotypical prejudices of Hollywood bigwigs holding the keys to the cash register. Director Stahelski together with Yen brainstormed how to present blind kung fu/gunslinger Caine and decided on an interesting approach where they nicely balanced that he’s on par with John Wick in skill, but must find different ways to compensate for not seeing opponents or objects in the environment. He’s neither infallible with hearing like Daredevil, nor super intuitive like Zatoichi (if you don’t know who that is, google a bit 😉 ), but he’s more than capable of destroying everyone in a row, including John Wick. Yes, this actor is focused on action, but he also had a couple of short emotional scenes that gave dimension to Caine. By the way, this great actor was thrilled with director Stahelski and how he understood him better regarding action films than his colleagues from Hong Kong.

I was also delighted by the episodic role of brilliant Hiroyuki Sanada (“The Last Samurai,” “Twilight Samurai,” “Westworld,” “Mortal Kombat”) as manager of the “Continental” hotel in Osaka with all classic samurai calmness and measured speech, as well as scenes when he draws his katana on opponents.

Then we can’t forget Scott “Boyka” Adkins (“Boyka,” “IP Man 4,” “Accident Man,” “The Expendables 2”) as Killa Harkan, a German asthmatic chubby “crazy” criminal who sends opponents to “the other world” with his raw strength, weight, as well as kickboxing knowledge. It was hilarious to see this talented martial arts master look unrecognizable under a pile of prosthetic additions and a suit (which should represent fat) with front gold teeth, sometimes clumsily fleeing from John, and sometimes beating him to death. And by the way this character was a small homage to many James Bond villains.

There’s also martial arts star from Chile Marco Zaror as the sullen right hand of the Marquis, who’s not at all easy to kill in this film, as well as Shamier Anderson as “Mr. Nobody” and his faithful dog, who patiently wait for John’s bounty to grow.

Oh yes, interesting fact that at the end of the film John’s head was priced at 40 million dollars!

As for the film’s ending itself and what happened to John, it’s left undefined and can be interpreted ambiguously. That’s perhaps expected, because it wasn’t certain whether there’d be interest to film a fifth part in the franchise, since a spin-off film and mini-series are already being prepared. However, considering this was the best part in the franchise, and that it’s already made good money on it (with a budget of 100 million dollars, the film has so far grossed a solid 432 million) and that it was well received by both audiences and critics, for now it’s quite certain there’ll be a fifth part, but the fact is they’ll now have to work on the plot too.

All in all “John Wick 4” ended up being a great action film, the best in the franchise so far. Almost three hours of non-stop action will satisfy every fan of this genre.

Absolute recommendation from me! 🙂

And finally, a bit more interesting facts about the film:

• The underground train station in Paris (where John Wick and “king of beggars” meet) is called “Porte des Lilas” and though not in use for traffic, it’s a fully functionally preserved building and serves for rental for filming purposes (so as not to block train traffic in Paris)
• Keanu Reeves gave each stuntman a personalized shirt that says how many times each stuntman “died” in the film. And his five stuntmen who alternated with him in the film each got a Rolex watch, each with a personalized message. That’s what a king brother Keanu is!
• This is the last completed film of the late Lance Reddick
• The desert scene where John Wick and the Elder meet is a real location (not computer-made), with the place where “Lawrence of Arabia” was filmed
• John Wick spoke only 380 words in this film… I think there’s no film where the main hero spoke less…
• Keanu Reeves intensively prepared for three months for this film, training martial arts and driving
• The time gap (in the cinematic “John Wick” world) between the first three parts was always short (i.e., they always followed one another), but eight months passed from the beginning of events in “John Wick 4” (if you remember, John was badly wounded at the end of the third part)
• Chad Stahelski found a lot of inspiration for the fourth part in the cult film “The Warriors”
• The director had no idea how big a music star Rina Sawayama is in Japan, but accidentally came across her video on YouTube, and after 24 hours offered her engagement for the role of Akira
• The character from “Ruska Roma” (by the way, bouncer and photographer in real life) who only knows how to say “I am Klaus” is a reference to “I am Groot” from “The Guardians of the Galaxy”
• Bowery King at the beginning of the film quotes Dante’s “Inferno”
• If you noticed, the Parisian radio station in the film is called “Wuxia.” Wuxia is by the way a name for a genre in Chinese cinematography that focuses on martial arts themes (like, for example, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”)

And you, dear reader, do you think “John Wick 4” is (so far) the best part in the franchise? 🙂

Trailer | Imdb | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic

Format: Film | Premiere: 2023 | Runtime: 169 minutes