The Gun-Fu fighting style in JOHN WICK was chosen to accommodate the film’s short shooting schedule

John Wick is a film franchise that seems to have exploded onto the scene with its unique badass style. the movie star, Keanu Reeves, brings an unrelenting fighting technique, but a recognizable character in the stories. He just feels like a guy you’d follow into a fight because it feels like the right thing to do.

While the fighting method used in the movies isn’t entirely unique to the movies, they definitely made it their own. Legendary Hong Kong director John Woo pioneered the gun-fu fighting style in the 1980s transforming gunfights in films from static shot sequences to highly choreographed kinetic experiences.

/Film explains that in a 2019 interview, a former stuntman and director of John Wick movie, Chad Stahelskispoke about the philosophy behind the filming of John Wick action scenes, where he said:

“I love live performance. I love to sit and watch a stage. Then all the action [in ‘John Wick’] it was sort of choreographed so you can sit and watch. Again everyone gives us the long takes, the limited editing stuff. It’s not like the overall goal, our goal is immersion and the more you see Keanu doing things the more you understand that John Wick is a badass because you see Keanu Reeves being a badass. It just goes with the immersion in character.”

Essentially, Stahelski e David Leitchwho produced the John Wick film and helped direct the first film, they used long takes not for the fun of it, but because they felt the less they cut, the more viewers believed they were seeing a real fight. But this brought problems to him.

Stahelski delved into the genesis of the John Wick action style in an interview with Forbes in 2017. In it, he revealed that, with just 47 days to shoot, he and Leitch were forced to find a way to save as much time as possible. And when you’re trying to sell the idea of ​​realism, the last thing you want to worry about is making obviously fake fists look real with clever editing techniques, especially if you’re trying to keep audiences immersed with long takes. As Stahelski explained:

“The more you punch and kick, the more you have to miss, because you have to sell the blow, you have to change the angle. So ok, we will get rid of punches and kicks. We will do judo, jiu-jitsu and tactical weapons work, so we can contain all the blows , without cuts. So we developed a style and reverse engineered it from there.”

It’s a fantastic way to make a movie, and it’s added to the reasons why people loved the first film and felt compelled to come back for everything that’s been accomplished within the franchise.

John Wick: Chapter 4 will be released in theaters next month on March 24, 2023.