Speaker 1: Any of his Jason Concepcion and on Roseay Night and
Speaker 1: welcome back to X ray Vision, the podcast where we
Speaker 1: dive you to your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture.
Speaker 1: Coming to you from iHeart Podcast, where we're bringing you
Speaker 1: three huge episodes a week every Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday plus
Speaker 1: news plus news.
Speaker 2: On today's episode, we are talking about the upcoming new
Speaker 2: John Wick movie.
Speaker 3: Have you heard of it?
Speaker 2: It's called Ballerina, which is interesting. Ballerina. That's because it's
Speaker 2: a spinoff. Yes, exactly, So it's a spin off.
Speaker 3: It starts on a damas. We haven't seen it.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna use this as a chance to talk
Speaker 2: about the Drunk franchise, talk about gun Fu, one of
Speaker 2: my favorite sub genres that takes the close quarters of
Speaker 2: martial arts and a kung fu film and adds a
Speaker 2: shit kind of crazy guns being used in completely illogical
Speaker 2: but fantastic ways. And I'll also talk about what Ballerina
Speaker 2: needs to do to be a hit.
Speaker 1: Okay John Wick. John Wick's Ballerina starring on an armis
Speaker 1: coming out this week, directed by our favor one of
Speaker 1: our one of our werewolf in Vampire Phaves Len Wizman.
Speaker 1: The film takes place during the events I Love the
Speaker 1: Love the People, I Love It, I Love Timeline Shifting,
Speaker 1: UH spinoffs, Fast and the Furious style chronology. So this
Speaker 1: film takes place during the events of John Wick Chapter
Speaker 1: three Parabellum, which is an interesting note for the apparent
Speaker 1: john Wick cameo, or maybe it's more than a cameo,
Speaker 1: or maybe it's less that takes place in the film
Speaker 1: and it follows Eve maccarl out of Diarmis, who is
Speaker 1: beginning her training in the assassin traditions of the Ruska Roma,
Speaker 1: which is apparently a subgroup that is then involved in
Speaker 1: the overall assassin culture of the John Wick films.
Speaker 2: We saw them training in the kind of theater in
Speaker 2: the Fust movie, I.
Speaker 1: Believe, and according to Variety, Lionsgate which is at this
Speaker 1: point like much the same way that New Line was
Speaker 1: the House Built by Freddy, this is like the House
Speaker 1: Built by John Wick is targeting a so SO start
Speaker 1: of about twenty eight to thirty million from thirty four
Speaker 1: hundred North American locations in the first weekend of release.
Speaker 1: Vallerine is looking to add another thirty million from international
Speaker 1: markets after that. SO we're gonna get a chance that
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the film after we see it,
Speaker 1: but this is our conversation to get you ready for it.
Speaker 1: We talk about various things related to john Wick, Anody Armis,
Speaker 1: and Len Wizman. First of all, Rosie, what does this
Speaker 1: movie need to do to be a quote unquote successful
Speaker 1: entrance into the john Wick franchise.
Speaker 2: I think the reason that the john Wick movies are
Speaker 2: so beloved is because they are inventive, stunt focused, something
Speaker 2: just totally different than we'd seen before. Obviously, you have
Speaker 2: a great omnibus this episode coming up about Gunfu, but
Speaker 2: we hadn't really seen a Western Gunfu movie in the
Speaker 2: same way that we've you know, someone like john Wick
Speaker 2: John Wu deals with them, or even the way that
Speaker 2: the Matrix in the late nineties early Zeros kind of
Speaker 2: played with it a little bit. John Wick felt completely
Speaker 2: different and it gave Keanu Reeves a new franchise. It
Speaker 2: reintroduced him to audiences. It had a really easy, you know,
Speaker 2: original but completely classic revenge motif, but it was about
Speaker 2: a dog and the emotional connection to a dog. It
Speaker 2: gave us different kinds of villains by making the Mafia
Speaker 2: Russian mafia focused kind of villains, which often these kind
Speaker 2: of movies where somebody takes revenge after their family die,
Speaker 2: like a death Wish or the Notorious Peppermint, often come
Speaker 2: across as very racist because they're just about killing a
Speaker 2: bunch of black and brown people. So this really was
Speaker 2: a complete shot to the system for action and I
Speaker 2: think the dream version of this is that this can
Speaker 2: be that for Anadames for female action movies. But will
Speaker 2: it deliver on that, I don't know, because so far
Speaker 2: they're already heavily connecting it to John Wick.
Speaker 3: I think this comes from an era where they wanted.
Speaker 2: To do a lot of John Wick sequels without Keanu,
Speaker 2: including The Continental, which was a very belagued series a
Speaker 2: beleagued network, and it ended up not hitting in the
Speaker 2: same way. So I'm interested to see I hope this
Speaker 2: goes well. We have seen this is the thing that
Speaker 2: I'm most interested about. We've seen Anada Armis in one
Speaker 2: of the best action sequences of the last I know
Speaker 2: ten years in the Last James Bond movie with Daniel Craig,
Speaker 2: where the pem.
Speaker 1: Meet up No time to die.
Speaker 2: It's so good they meet up, they're kind of immediately
Speaker 2: thrown into this fun, crazy action sequence. She totally holds
Speaker 2: her own. She's absolutely incredible, and I'm hoping that they
Speaker 2: get to channel that into this movie, because she really
Speaker 2: was a star. But the trailers are don't show a lot.
Speaker 2: We haven't seen the movie yet. The movie comes out
Speaker 2: in a few days. The embargo is not up, so
Speaker 2: it doesn't always bode well, but I'm hoping that this.
Speaker 3: Could be great.
Speaker 2: Also, I will say, as we mentioned then Wiseman, this
Speaker 2: is a man who has directed many female led action
Speaker 2: movies in the shape of the Underwhelmed franchise.
Speaker 3: So there's a version where it could be good. But
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to do by the way, so let's
Speaker 1: let's briefly talk all things. Len. Here's my thing with Lynn.
Speaker 1: I love It's a guilty pleasure, but I love all
Speaker 1: the Underworld movies.
Speaker 3: Of course, they're not enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Quote unquote good really, but they are. The casts are
Speaker 1: almost uniformly wonderful. The action is and the story and
Speaker 1: setup is just wildly over the top, and they get,
Speaker 1: like I mean, they get incredible performances from some really
Speaker 1: really talented actors in these films. And the action is
Speaker 1: this kind of Matrix inspired horror action that is wonderful,
Speaker 1: in your face, over the top. It's just very watchable,
Speaker 1: like Saturday Afternoon like fair for me.
Speaker 2: It's very It's very Pool w s Anderson on Yes,
Speaker 2: with an evil franchise like him and Lenn with their
Speaker 2: wives that were starring in the movies, were very, very
Speaker 2: clearly excited to make action againaws out of that wife
Speaker 2: and I who can blame him?
Speaker 1: Yes, and again, the talent is fantastic. I get Kate
Speaker 1: beckhamsale like, don't get it twisted because of the kind
Speaker 1: of B movie framing of the underworlds. Here, She's a
Speaker 1: legitimately very talented actor. And Bill Nihey, is it these films?
Speaker 1: Michael Sheen? Is it these films? Mike chewing up scenery? Yeah,
Speaker 1: shirt off Michael Sheen, full like werewolf mode. Now Here's
Speaker 1: so love love Len. Here's the issue. I don't want
Speaker 1: to see him doing anything other than vampire wearwalth movies,
Speaker 1: which gives me some pause about Ballerina because two thousand
Speaker 1: and sevens Live for Your die Hard. I think the
Speaker 1: you know, a much forgotten and rightfully sow entrant into
Speaker 1: the long running Diehard series Awful twenty twelve, the if
Speaker 1: you haven't seen it, don't see it remake of the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties Arnold Schwarzeneger hit Total Recall. The twenty twelve
Speaker 1: when we've been directed, Total Recall is awful. Get just
Speaker 1: none of that, Dems and go watch you please watch
Speaker 1: the Paul Verehoven version, which is weird. It is campy, practical, wonderful,
Speaker 1: practical effects. This kind of sly subversiveness that for Hoven
Speaker 1: is known for. The Weizman thing is just like when
Speaker 1: he's not doing the werewolves in the Vampires. It's like
Speaker 1: a straight action movie and it's so straight that I'm
Speaker 1: I don't know, it doesn't have any charge for me.
Speaker 3: They don't even go to Mars.
Speaker 1: They don't go they don't even go to Mars, which
Speaker 1: is what are we doing?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 3: Crazy?
Speaker 1: Crazy? And so that part of it, I'm a little
Speaker 1: I'm a little worried Rosie.
Speaker 2: So so I will say, I think the thing that
Speaker 2: lem Weiseman does well is hard genre right. He yes
Speaker 2: was the executive producer on Sleepy Hollo. He was an
Speaker 2: executive producer on Lucifer The Great Tea.
Speaker 1: Under Wonderful underrated Lucifer Yeah.
Speaker 2: Gifted the early X Men TV show that we've got
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, also surprisingly good swamp thing.
Speaker 2: We all know how I feel about that TV shs philosophy,
Speaker 2: But like, I think that he has a good eye
Speaker 2: for weird, hard genre stories.
Speaker 3: I hope that what this can do is lean into.
Speaker 2: The magical realism of the High Table as the Ruscaroma
Speaker 2: and which essentially from what we've seen so far in
Speaker 2: the franchise, is like a black Widow program or a
Speaker 2: redwom program, or the Jennifer Lawrence movie Blackbird. There's many
Speaker 2: different kind of versions of this, like Russian children, especially
Speaker 2: women being trained from you know, we love to become
Speaker 2: a sac.
Speaker 1: I love Russian mobster baddies ever like it.
Speaker 2: I know America can't get enough, and I just I'm
Speaker 2: very interested to see where it goes. I think that
Speaker 2: the pair of the I think that Len Wiseman and
Speaker 2: Ana Damas could be a great She has got kind
Speaker 2: of a similar vibe to Beckham Sale, where she takes
Speaker 2: unexchecuted roles. She can be in a rom com, but
Speaker 2: she can also be in an action movie.
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's see.
Speaker 2: I'm interested because the story of this movie is that
Speaker 2: there was bad test screenings, there was reshoots, there was
Speaker 2: a lot of money put into it. You know me,
Speaker 2: I'm always like I would probably rather see whatever that
Speaker 2: version was like two years ago when it was probably
Speaker 2: a super low budget, weird movie. But the big question
Speaker 2: I think out of all of it, as with any
Speaker 2: and this is not to put anything unfair onto Anna.
Speaker 2: This is to ask the question that we ask of
Speaker 2: any movie like this, like we asked of Gladiator too
Speaker 2: with Paul.
Speaker 3: Mescal Does Ana Damas have the juice?
Speaker 1: Jason, I am a little concerned that she doesn't have
Speaker 1: the juice simply because I think if she had the juice,
Speaker 1: it would have been juicing by now.
Speaker 3: It would have already been selling the juice.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's been several years since. You know, when
Speaker 1: was the I think it was like PLoP p probably
Speaker 1: war Dogs or Blade Runner twenty forty nine, when you
Speaker 1: when you first started hearing oh Anadharmas is coming, knives out,
Speaker 1: oh Anna Dharmas is coming, so yeah, and then certainly
Speaker 1: no time to die, and then the starring role. It's
Speaker 1: not that she hasn't starred in stuff. But the most
Speaker 1: notable stuff you know her in is stuff where she
Speaker 1: was a co star and I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know that she has to do. She's done a lot
Speaker 1: of kind of romantic type roles, including a absolutely weird,
Speaker 1: weird Adrian lined erotic and no one loves an erotic
Speaker 1: thriller more than Adrian, but like weird, weird erotic thriller
Speaker 1: in which she co starred across from Ben Affleck, who
Speaker 1: she's dating.
Speaker 3: It's such a weird movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a weird movie.
Speaker 3: Sexy snail movie. She was already in three movies with.
Speaker 2: Keanna Reeves, including the movie that I was talking about,
Speaker 2: not of a Drome Wake episode, the wonderfullly cheesy and
Speaker 2: terrible Eli Roth movie Knock Knock, which I love but
Speaker 2: is absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1: And I've seen a lot of her films, I honestly
Speaker 1: can't say that there's one time, including the deep Water
Speaker 1: directed by everybody's favorite erotic thriller King Adrian Lyon, that
Speaker 1: were I thought, Wow, Annie Armis's chemistry with the cast,
Speaker 1: with her co star with whoever really pot whoa really
Speaker 1: pops off the screen, and I think that's something. It's
Speaker 1: that kind of X factor thing where maybe she just
Speaker 1: doesn't have it, or maybe there's something holding back the juice.
Speaker 1: I also think that it's a lot of action roles
Speaker 1: at this point, Like it's a lot of these kind
Speaker 1: of roles, and I wonder if there's she does take
Speaker 1: weird stuff, but I wonder if the choices are not
Speaker 1: necessarily there kind of a big movie for any Armis
Speaker 1: like this is this is.
Speaker 3: A hard set off a new era.
Speaker 1: Because this is a hard genre film where the franchise
Speaker 1: is as big as of a star, arguably as the
Speaker 1: star of the film, and expectations are medium, not high,
Speaker 1: and so if it doesn't go it, I think it's it.
Speaker 1: It's not great for both the john Wick franchise, who
Speaker 1: trying to expand past Keanu Reeves who is sixty, and
Speaker 1: for Andy Armis, who we've been waiting to kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, break big into a different level and it
Speaker 1: hasn't happened yet. Your thoughts.
Speaker 3: I would love for this to surprise us. I will say, like, as.
Speaker 2: We know, john Wick was not some when it started.
Speaker 2: It was not some like hugely surprising. It was not
Speaker 2: some expected hit, you know, it was very much like
Speaker 2: a slow burn smash that ended up launching a franchise.
Speaker 2: I think with everything with franchise movies, this does sadly
Speaker 2: seem like it has the in the world of John Wick, like,
Speaker 2: let's connect it to this thing, and it's like, is
Speaker 2: are you making something that was as original as John Wick?
Speaker 2: Are you making something that was as interesting as John Wick?
Speaker 2: Do you have people like Chad Stileski behind the scenes.
Speaker 2: But I will say I have read a lot of
Speaker 2: interviews with lem Wiseman about this because I do find
Speaker 2: this movie to be in a very interesting place.
Speaker 3: If you look at the success of the John.
Speaker 2: Wick movies, this should be one of the blockbusters. They
Speaker 2: should have been doing fans screenings. They should already have
Speaker 2: the reviews out like this should be like and it
Speaker 2: feels unusual that they are not in that space. So
Speaker 2: I've been reading to kind of try and find out. Definitely,
Speaker 2: I think sees this movie as a He is calling
Speaker 2: it a spin on instead of a spin off, which
Speaker 2: I kind of like because I'm like, Okay, well, if
Speaker 2: you're just doing John Wick again but with a woman,
Speaker 2: I'm kind of fine with that.
Speaker 3: Yes, But I think what he really means.
Speaker 2: Is it happens in the chronologue in the chronology of
Speaker 2: the movies, whereas spinoffs often don't. But the thing I
Speaker 2: have been interested. He has talked a lot about wanting
Speaker 2: to explore the folkloric elements and the weird kind of
Speaker 2: realities of the rest.
Speaker 1: Of the simmar and that's kind so I agree.
Speaker 2: Hopefully, maybe the reason that it's not getting greater views
Speaker 2: is because it's kind of weird and it can find
Speaker 2: its own place.
Speaker 3: But I do think it's.
Speaker 2: Tough because all these movies, you know, it has one
Speaker 2: of those blooming posters that makes it look like they
Speaker 2: see get a bunch of people's faces into it. I
Speaker 2: don't think currently it looks like showing enough individual Yes,
Speaker 2: it looks like the bloody end Game post and it's like,
Speaker 2: I just don't I don't know that it's gonna I
Speaker 2: want it to be more original than it currently seems.
Speaker 2: So let's hope this is a marketing issue rather than
Speaker 2: an actual issue.
Speaker 1: How here's a question that I think anyone who's closely
Speaker 1: watched the trailer will have. How much is Keanu Reeves
Speaker 1: actually in this film? And will he and Anna actually
Speaker 1: be in the not in the same scene, in the
Speaker 1: same shot where they were clearly in the same space
Speaker 1: at the same time.
Speaker 3: Post credit sequence.
Speaker 2: Yes, I mean they have worked together three times, so
Speaker 2: I'm kinda hoping that it gets to be something a
Speaker 2: bit realer than that. But it does look like from
Speaker 2: the trailer that it's very much like shooting from behind
Speaker 2: a brunette woman's head who's in the same rim as
Speaker 2: Keanu Reeves, and then shooting from a brunette man said,
Speaker 2: who's in the same room as added armis, So yeah,
Speaker 2: he He's probably gonna be in it for like three minutes.
Speaker 2: I would love if it was longer, because I do
Speaker 2: think that john Wick mostly stands on the really great
Speaker 2: weird relationships that Keanu makes throughout with his cast members
Speaker 2: and the characters, like the stuff with him and Laurence
Speaker 2: Fishburn or well on the Ferne. Like, there's so many
Speaker 2: good weird moments that don't have to go on that long.
Speaker 3: So I would love that.
Speaker 2: But I also think that sadly, the original John Wick
Speaker 2: movie was super weird. Nobody thought it was gonna make
Speaker 2: any money, and I think that probably allowed them to
Speaker 2: do a lot more weird stuff with it. I don't
Speaker 2: know if we're going to get you know, twenty minutes
Speaker 2: silent action sequences in this.
Speaker 3: Movie, which is kind of what made john Wick great.
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 2: Hopefully they're in the same room, but realistically I'm saying
Speaker 2: under five minutes, probably not in the same you know
Speaker 2: in really.
Speaker 1: You know what, this movie makes me kind of pine
Speaker 1: for the uh john Wick mainstay. Director David Lych project
Speaker 1: Atomic Blonde twenty seventeen staring Charlie's That is kind of
Speaker 1: like pre john Wick Joan Wick, Like it's yeah, and
Speaker 1: it just kind of got forgotten. I hope that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen with this film. And I hope that that was
Speaker 1: a weird movie also, like There Were every One is.
Speaker 2: A deeply weird movie, I believe, also in a good
Speaker 2: way to be that person.
Speaker 3: It's also based on a comic book. Guy, Yes, that's true,
Speaker 3: based on a.
Speaker 2: Comic book, and uh yeah, I think that's a really
Speaker 2: weird fun movie. Also, you know what, maybe this can
Speaker 2: be that movie for Ana Damas. Maybe that's the best
Speaker 2: case scenario because truthfully, it was not like some huge
Speaker 2: smash it for Charlie's.
Speaker 3: But then she was in Fantastic, then.
Speaker 2: She was in you know, the MCU, then she was
Speaker 2: in most no, I think the Fast and Furious movies
Speaker 2: as like an action star. So maybe this is gonna
Speaker 2: hit in that way that has Anna recognized as an
Speaker 2: action star and see where she could where she could
Speaker 2: hopefully go What are I mean?
Speaker 1: This is kind of like the larger question, right what
Speaker 1: are what are hit movies anymore? Outside of we outside
Speaker 1: of having.
Speaker 3: This conversation like what does that even look like?
Speaker 1: I think it's move outside of IP, like what is
Speaker 1: a hit?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: We do have a fantastic We have a fantastic situation
Speaker 2: going on right now. We have a perfect example and
Speaker 2: this is gonna change Hollywood for the next couple of years. Currently,
Speaker 2: a successful movie is looks like sinnots. It's an original
Speaker 2: IP movie that you give ninety million dollars to, but
Speaker 2: that makes four hundred million dollars. That is a huge
Speaker 2: smash hit that becomes this kind of new mental zeitgeist, churning,
Speaker 2: scene stealing film that makes every other movie around it
Speaker 2: look bad. But that again is a lightning in a
Speaker 2: bottle situation. I also think that we're still in a
Speaker 2: world where successful movies are and Sinners is part of this.
Speaker 2: They are genre movies often because the budget is lower.
Speaker 2: You know, we're gonna have Megan two coming out soon.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that that is gonna probably make a lot
Speaker 2: more money than it costs. And I think that you
Speaker 2: make a good point though, because what does a huge
Speaker 2: franchise movie.
Speaker 3: How does it have success?
Speaker 2: Because I'm sure this movie costs a lot of money,
Speaker 2: It's had reshoots, it's a John Wick movie. Those movies
Speaker 2: budgets have ballooned. So what does a successful movie look like?
Speaker 2: And how would Ballerina become successful? I mean, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: tell you one thing. Look, I'm sorry Lionsgate because this
Speaker 2: is definitely a Lionsgate issue.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna tell you number.
Speaker 2: One reason that this movie proble will not be massively successful.
Speaker 2: Why did they put From the World of John Wick
Speaker 2: Colon before the name?
Speaker 3: Just trust the name.
Speaker 2: We've met the Ballerinas, we understand the notion like that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. I think, like no movie really has
Speaker 2: ever done with a catchy name like From the World
Speaker 2: of John Wick Colon balle You just trust.
Speaker 1: The people John Wicks, John Wick's by John Wick. Ballerina
Speaker 1: He's and then you're gonna be like, okay, but he's
Speaker 1: only in it. Actually I'm never in the same places.
Speaker 1: But who cares? Like you're just trying to you know,
Speaker 1: like who who cares?
Speaker 2: Okay, Ballerina did cost they're saying around eighty to ninety millions,
Speaker 2: So let's see what it happens that Steward ball I'm yes.
Speaker 2: I mean the fact this movie does kind of have
Speaker 2: a banger cast, like Angelica Houston, who we've seen before
Speaker 2: as the leader of the director of the Resciroma, gabrielle
Speaker 2: Bert Burne. I love him, He's in so many different
Speaker 2: great movies. Lance Reddick, he reprised his role before he
Speaker 2: passed away as Karen. Also Norman Readers, who I also love,
Speaker 2: and Ian McShane also in this before.
Speaker 3: And Keanu Reeves.
Speaker 2: So I do feel like I'm like, there is something
Speaker 2: here that could be special.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you something about Oh, Norman Readers hair dependent, Right,
Speaker 1: He's like the Orlando Bloom He's somehow made a career
Speaker 1: out of always have long hair exactly, never cut it.
Speaker 3: Never cut that hair, bro don't do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, So let me tell you this, this is one
Speaker 2: of the most deranged things I've maybe ever heard. Okay,
Speaker 2: in twenty seventeen, Lionsgate Films acquired Shay Hatton's action thriller Ballerina,
Speaker 2: which itself was inspired when Hatton viewed the trailer to
Speaker 2: John Wick Chapter two, and they decided to produce used
Speaker 2: the film with him rewriting it to be part of
Speaker 2: the John Wick franchise. Already a problem, I'll tell you
Speaker 2: that that's that's where the notion of taking a script
Speaker 2: and as we call it, like you know, uh, filing
Speaker 2: off the the IP or inserting the IP, filing off
Speaker 2: the serial numbers or inserting the serial numbers. I feel
Speaker 2: like that's always This movie has been in production for
Speaker 2: so long that in May twenty twenty they were looking
Speaker 2: at like Chloe Grace moretts, Wow, this is like how
Speaker 2: long ago this has been going on? I just I'm
Speaker 2: very interested. I want to know what happened. I mean,
Speaker 2: at one point, Emerald Fennel, who most famous now for Saltburn,
Speaker 2: but who at the time was very much in the
Speaker 2: conversation about Phoebe waller Bridge because she had written the
Speaker 2: next season of Killing Eve. She was involved in this.
Speaker 3: Like there feels like there has been a whole world man.
Speaker 1: The Phoebe, the Phoebe post mm hmmm post flea Bag.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's really stalled out on trying to write
Speaker 1: for movies and start and stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the whole thing is interesting.
Speaker 2: I also I am learning a lot here because I guess
Speaker 2: Keanu was originally.
Speaker 3: Supposed to be Jedi Master Soul in.
Speaker 2: The Acolyte makes a lot of sense. That would have
Speaker 2: been very interesting. But Yeah, basically this movie has been
Speaker 2: through a lot, been through let's say, I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: say hell, but it's been through a production struggle.
Speaker 3: It's come from an unusual kind of space.
Speaker 2: Of being a movie that was its own original movie
Speaker 2: that was then rewritten into the franchise.
Speaker 3: So yeah, let's we're gonna see.
Speaker 2: This is a very big I mean, I feel like
Speaker 2: I don't know, which is very rare for me.
Speaker 3: I literally have a theory or or a guess, but
Speaker 3: I feel like there's.
Speaker 1: A positive note up in the air. It's been fun
Speaker 1: to go to the movies this.
Speaker 3: This spring and something we had much good movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even the ones that are bad are kind of fun.
Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna I'm gonna continue to enjoying going to
Speaker 1: the movies and seeing from the world of john Wick Ballerina.
Speaker 3: Yes, from the lot of john Wick Ballerina.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with the Omnibus on Gunfu. Yeah, and we're back. Welcome
Speaker 1: to another edition of the Omnibus where lore and analysis
Speaker 1: and understanding come together. Today we are discussing the cinematic
Speaker 1: subgenre gun fu, a bullet ballet through the lens of
Speaker 1: the John Wick franchise, perhaps its most famous exponent. Yes,
Speaker 1: gunfu is exactly what it sounds like, folks. It's a
Speaker 1: style of modern action that combines martial arts style, choreography
Speaker 1: and gunplay. The results, at their best, as in the
Speaker 1: John Wick series, brings shape to the chaos of combat,
Speaker 1: creates a deadly dance. The roots of the subgenre go
Speaker 1: all the way back to the Hong Kong action films
Speaker 1: of the sixties and seventies, the Kung fu films, the
Speaker 1: Wusha epics, and its branches reached through the decades and
Speaker 1: across the ocean to Hollywood's adopt adoption of the style
Speaker 1: in films like Desperado the Matrix, which is perhaps the
Speaker 1: most famous and popular combination of Wusha and Hollywood style gunplay.
Speaker 1: The Wanted, the kind of criminally underrated wanted film, and
Speaker 1: it's book based on a comic book by who, let's
Speaker 1: forget who wrote, and of course and of course the
Speaker 1: John Wick film series. This is a wild ride, So
Speaker 1: go ahead and grab two release the doves. Let's dive
Speaker 1: in slow motion. In slow motion, even if you're not
Speaker 1: a fan of Shaw Brothers films or you know classic
Speaker 1: kung fu and Wusha films, Wusha being a style of
Speaker 1: Chinese storytelling involving adventure, martial arts, medieval weaponry, and kind
Speaker 1: of like righteous justice. You know the tropes involved with
Speaker 1: these kinds of things, most notably perhaps the image of
Speaker 1: a lone hero, perhaps armed with a sword or spirit,
Speaker 1: but perhaps unarmed, taking on a horde of enemies, dozens
Speaker 1: of enemies.
Speaker 3: All alone, with lots of wirework.
Speaker 1: Yes, these films dominated the Hong Kong based cinema of
Speaker 1: the sixties and seventies, and the style eventually trickled through
Speaker 1: to the US with nineteen seventy one's kind of martial
Speaker 1: arts landmark Billy Jackow a forgotten film at this point,
Speaker 1: and of course with the superstar star comet that was
Speaker 1: Bruce Lee. But by the mid eighties, Bruce had passed,
Speaker 1: and martial arts films, even in Hong Kong entered a
Speaker 1: kind of transition period. In the US, these kind of
Speaker 1: films which were so associated with Lee, almost alone with him,
Speaker 1: had retreated to the realm of b movies. I See you,
Speaker 1: Jim Katta, I see you. You know, the Ninja franchise
Speaker 1: also as well.
Speaker 2: You know, this is an omnibus for another day, but
Speaker 2: it was so connected to Bruce Lee that we entered
Speaker 2: into an era of what we call Bruce ploitation, which.
Speaker 1: Was movie they got the fake people.
Speaker 3: Who were fake Bruce Lee's. So it really was that
Speaker 3: connected to him.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, those American stories like Jim Cotton, like
Speaker 2: American Ninja three, American you know.
Speaker 1: I love I love the American American Ninja three. I
Speaker 1: believe is the one where she's possessed by the spirit
Speaker 1: of the ninja. Right, Yeah, I love that one. Okay.
Speaker 1: So by the eighties, Hollywood action had become dominant, and
Speaker 1: the action of this period was much more heavily armed,
Speaker 1: much more heavily muscled. We're talking, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Speaker 1: sly stallone, and they were still taking on masses and
Speaker 1: masses and massive bad guys. It's just that they were
Speaker 1: gunning them down with like M sixty machine guns and
Speaker 1: with you know, assault rifles with grenade launchers under the barrel.
Speaker 1: Jackie Chan's landmark police story from nineteen eighty five took
Speaker 1: these action oriented Hollywood influences like car chases, gunplay, etc.
Speaker 1: And blended it with Jackie's trademark kung fu choreography and
Speaker 1: his iconic daredevil stuntwork to create this kind of modern
Speaker 1: day cops and criminal story that provided the energy of
Speaker 1: a kung fu brawl, but in a contemporary action setting.
Speaker 1: Here were the stirrings of a new kind of action language.
Speaker 1: The Hong Kong tours were essentially asking, how can we
Speaker 1: take what we were good at, what we know, the wushu,
Speaker 1: the martial arts, and combine it with this new world
Speaker 1: of firearm driven action, and so enter jhn Wu. Wu
Speaker 1: came up through the kind of Hong Kong kung fu,
Speaker 1: wusha and romantic films of the period, but by the
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties, influenced by American action films, he began to
Speaker 1: create something new. He took the elegant, the precise choreography
Speaker 1: of kung fu and then honestly simply added guns, usually
Speaker 1: two nine millimeter barettas, one in each hand. This genre
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong and in Asia was called heroic bloodshed,
Speaker 1: and it's probably it's the closest analog that we have
Speaker 1: to the style that we call gunfu.
Speaker 3: Here.
Speaker 1: Wu launched his cinematic fuselage with a Better Tomorrow nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six. He followed up with my personal favorite film
Speaker 1: of his, The Killer in nineteen eighty nine, So many doves,
Speaker 1: so many exploding cars, so much action, so much romance,
Speaker 1: and then followed those up with what many consider his
Speaker 1: masterpiece nineteen ninety twos, Hard Boiled. These films almost alone
Speaker 1: really created an entirely new language of action cinema, as
Speaker 1: Anthony Leong wrote in the Films of John Wu in
Speaker 1: the Art of Heroic Bloodshed quote. Before nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 1: Hong Kong cinem was firmly rooted in two genres, the
Speaker 1: martial arts film and the comedy. Gunplay was not terribly
Speaker 1: popular because audiences had considered it boring compared to fancy
Speaker 1: kung fu moves or graceful swordplay of Wusha epics. What
Speaker 1: movie grulers needed was a new way to present gunplay
Speaker 1: to show it as a skill that could be honed,
Speaker 1: integrating the acrobatics and the grace of the traditional martial arts.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what John Wu did. Wu did that
Speaker 1: by shooting action scenes with incredible deliberation and precision and style,
Speaker 1: using every tool he had tracking shots. It's kind of
Speaker 1: sweeping Dolly moves, all of it, often drenched in languorous
Speaker 1: slow motion. Incredible amount.
Speaker 2: If you have said mission impossible too, Yeah, how much
Speaker 2: this man loves slow.
Speaker 1: Motion love, And perhaps most importantly and subtly, he shrunk
Speaker 1: the range of a gun. No, your hero can shoot
Speaker 1: a guy from across the street, from across you know,
Speaker 1: a football field, but that's not fun to look at.
Speaker 1: That's what the traditional Asian audiences were considering pouring. And
Speaker 1: so the idea was to shrink the effective range so
Speaker 1: that a gun is more like a knife or a sword.
Speaker 1: And the results were both incredibly violent and style but
Speaker 1: also intimate. And I think this is incredibly well exemplified
Speaker 1: by The Killer, where your hero the anti hero assassin
Speaker 1: gone rogue. He does gun down like dozens and dozens
Speaker 1: and dozens of suit wearing hit men who are trying
Speaker 1: to kill him Hollywood style, but also when he confronts
Speaker 1: his foil, the heroic cop, who is the also the
Speaker 1: only person who who's he's both pursuing the assassin the killer,
Speaker 1: but he's also the only person who really understands him.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's very lame his robs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's all of these. There's one extended standoff around
Speaker 1: the blind love interest that they both kind of share,
Speaker 1: where they both have their guns out and they're holding
Speaker 1: their guns against each other, you know, against the other
Speaker 1: person's header, against the other person's side, while having this
Speaker 1: normal casual conversation pretending to be old friends in front
Speaker 1: of this woman who can't see what's going on, and
Speaker 1: the results are so unique and again so intimate for
Speaker 1: an action movie. Nineteen ninety two's Hard Boiled Again. Woo's
Speaker 1: what many consider his masterpiece has probably his crowning achievement
Speaker 1: in film, a nearly three minute long take gun battle
Speaker 1: which takes place inside of a hospital that is just
Speaker 1: getting blown apart, and it is fantastic. The camera willet
Speaker 1: you will never forget it, and the camera prowls alongside
Speaker 1: Chaalian fat as he blasts his way through corridors of goons,
Speaker 1: both up close and medium distance, the mayhem unfolding in
Speaker 1: real time. It's a jaw dropping sequence that you will
Speaker 1: not forget. The long take not only shows the virtuosity
Speaker 1: of Wu, his skill is technique, and his stunt team,
Speaker 1: but it also exemplifies Gunfu's core idea treating gun play
Speaker 1: with the same discipline, staging, and spatial awareness as a
Speaker 1: kumfu sparring match, and Hollywood noticed that this stuff was happening.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty nine is Teguin Cash starring so Uster Salona
Speaker 1: in a shockingly buff off liberally stole from Chan's nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five police Story, including its crowning stunt in which
Speaker 1: Chan like slides down a pole that is surrounded by
Speaker 1: these kind of Christmas light type wire lights and the
Speaker 1: lights all pop as he slides down. By the mid nineties,
Speaker 1: Wu had come to La been lured over, where he
Speaker 1: arguably became the go to Iraq action director of the period.
Speaker 1: I think that's fair to.
Speaker 3: Say, wouldn't you.
Speaker 1: Releasing a string of hits, including nineteen nine seven's Face Off,
Speaker 1: which I think contains some of the most pure gun
Speaker 1: fu sequses in in Wu's oof and is also one
Speaker 1: of the weirdest movies ever made. It's so weird, so strange.
Speaker 2: I went to see it at videots for my birthday
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, and it was so funny
Speaker 2: to watch it in a sold out theater with a
Speaker 2: ton of people and a lot of them definitely hadn't
Speaker 2: watched it before, and like every single time they're like.
Speaker 3: We're gonna take the face everyone was like cheering.
Speaker 2: Like. I also think that something that Face Off has
Speaker 2: and why I think John Wick ended up becoming so
Speaker 2: popular and so perfectly suited to the era that came out,
Speaker 2: and is Face Off is very silly.
Speaker 3: It's Nick Cage, It's John Travolta, It's John Wu.
Speaker 2: There is like very silly. There's a lot of laughs,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of unintentional loves. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: like real melodrama, which which we love. Think, yes, John
Speaker 2: Weary very read a serious and I think that the
Speaker 2: combination of gun fu and then like a kind of grim,
Speaker 2: gritty American action aesthetic that really brought those two things together.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Quentin Tarantino praised John Wu as quote a sheer
Speaker 1: genius who reinvented the crime action genre, liking likening Wu's
Speaker 1: influence to that of Sergiolioni on westerns or Jean Pierre
Speaker 1: Melville on crime thrillers. I Love John Pierre Melville. Robert
Speaker 1: Riguez gleefully stole from John Wu or borrowed from John
Speaker 1: Wu's influence in his nineteen ninety film ultra low budget,
Speaker 1: ultra indie action masterpiece Desperado. That film's hero and Tanner
Speaker 1: benderis is a mariachi with a gun, dives in dual
Speaker 1: wields like Chowian Fat in John Wu film blowing away
Speaker 1: bad guys in a dusty Mexican bar to the tune
Speaker 1: of an electric guitar. Rodriguez openly acknowledged that Hong Kong
Speaker 1: cinema was a major inspiration. In an interview at ascreenwriting
Speaker 1: dot Com from twenty fifteen, Rodriguez said, quote Luke Skywalker,
Speaker 1: Luke Skywalker and Indiana Jones could have been any color.
Speaker 1: That's what I learned from the John Wu movies. When
Speaker 1: you see a John Wu movie, you want to be Chinese.
Speaker 1: You want to be one of those guys. I knew
Speaker 1: it wasn't because they were Chinese, it was how he
Speaker 1: presented his heroes. I think a hero can be of
Speaker 1: any color or any race, if the filmmaker treats him
Speaker 1: with a lot of respect and of course a lot
Speaker 1: of style too make them look cool. All of this
Speaker 1: evolution and cross cultural pollination paved the way for a
Speaker 1: movie like john Wick to explode kind of surprisingly onto
Speaker 1: the scene with copious headshots. John Wick, directed by former
Speaker 1: stuntman Chad's Dahelski and uncredited co director David Leach, is
Speaker 1: the culmination of decades of gun fu refinement and also
Speaker 1: a little bit of like UFC Brazilian jiu jitsu influence
Speaker 1: as well, which is kind of amped up the genre.
Speaker 1: It distilled the genre to its its pure essence, a
Speaker 1: highly trained assad mowing through wave after wave of guys
Speaker 1: in a series of beautifully choreographed combat scenes that mixes judo,
Speaker 1: jiu jitsu, and glocks in equal measure. Stahelski approached the
Speaker 1: project with a reverence for Hong Kong action cinema techniques.
Speaker 1: He said that the key to grade action is training
Speaker 1: the performers relentlessly and shooting the fights clearly, with the
Speaker 1: crew and camera operators all working in unison with the
Speaker 1: stunt team, a philosophy explicitly learned from the feet of
Speaker 1: Hong Kong masters like You and Wuping. While working on
Speaker 1: the Matrix with Keanu Reeves in Hong Kong, Stahelski has
Speaker 1: noted the action team operates holistically. Quote. The cameramen were
Speaker 1: ex stunt guys, The editors were stunt trained. From the
Speaker 1: editor to the director to the performers, all on the
Speaker 1: same page. They were all at the rehearsals. Adopting this approach,
Speaker 1: Stahelski ensured Keanu Reeves was not just memorizing moves, but
Speaker 1: actually trained intensively in gun handling and martial arts and
Speaker 1: even in tactical driving, essentially turning the actor into a
Speaker 1: stunt professional. And that's why the action in Wick looks
Speaker 1: so good, looks so fluid, looks so authentically brutal. You
Speaker 1: can feel how real it is. The fights are executed
Speaker 1: and filmed in these long, kind of flowing takes as
Speaker 1: much as possible, with wide angles that let you see
Speaker 1: everything that's happening, all the exchange of blows, all the gunshots,
Speaker 1: all the cartridges expended from the gun. This is a
Speaker 1: deliberate break from the kind of Jason Bourne driven quick cut,
Speaker 1: shaky hand heldcam style of the two thousands. As Stahelski
Speaker 1: points out, too often the American approach to action is
Speaker 1: overly edited to quote hide imperfections, whereas the Hong Kong approach,
Speaker 1: which he seeks to emulate, is to train and shoot
Speaker 1: in the way that there's nothing to hide. The camera
Speaker 1: in John Wick doesn't wobble around just to create fake energy. Instead,
Speaker 1: it tracks smoothly. It lets you see everything. It lets
Speaker 1: the physicality and the action speak for itself, and the
Speaker 1: effect is what it is. It's exhilarating, it's shocking, it's surprising.
Speaker 1: The influence of gunfu extends, of course, well beyond the movies.
Speaker 1: It's permeated all of the pop culture landscape. For when
Speaker 1: it revolutionized how video games portray combat, the most obvious
Speaker 1: example being Max Pain, the hit two thousand and one
Speaker 1: video game and the ensuing sequels that is essentially a
Speaker 1: love letter to John Wu, in which it's hero Max,
Speaker 1: that kind of grizzled cop dual wields nine millimeter burrettas
Speaker 1: and dives over things in slow motion bullet time, you know,
Speaker 1: blazing away like Chili un fat. The developers even filled
Speaker 1: that game with levels. The developers even filled the game
Speaker 1: levels with Fluttering Doves as an easter egg to John
Speaker 1: Wu's films. And so here we are in twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: waiting for the opening of from the world of John
Speaker 1: Wick Ballerina, from Hong Kong to Hollywood, from video games
Speaker 1: to the big screen to you know, Ballerina and beyond.
Speaker 1: Gunfu has proven to be one of action cinema's most
Speaker 1: exhilarating evolutions.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: And this couldn't be better timed because we recently got
Speaker 2: some very exciting news which is straight from Can that
Speaker 2: Hard Boiled has been restored.
Speaker 3: From the original.
Speaker 2: Thirty five millimeter camera negative it premiered it Can and
Speaker 2: it's going to be available in North America through Shout
Speaker 2: Factory Studios, and they have actually started a new entertainment
Speaker 2: label that we've all been really excited about called Hong
Speaker 2: Kong Cinema Classics, and yeah, I cannot wait for this.
Speaker 2: It's also going to have the restoration of the original
Speaker 2: Cantonese theatrical mono track.
Speaker 3: Like it's gonna be great. And so if you've never
Speaker 3: seen Hard Boiled, you're gonna be able to shit in
Speaker 3: beautiful four K very soon.
Speaker 2: On the next episode of X Ray Vision we are
Speaker 2: bringing you a roundup of the biggest nerd news of
Speaker 2: the week, along with my interview with the incredible Philipope Brothers,
Speaker 2: the directors of the new A twenty four chiller Bring
Speaker 2: Her Back, which is in theaters on wide release this week.
Speaker 2: And if you've been saying, oh, I wish I could see.
Speaker 3: You guys on the screen more, well, guess what. That's
Speaker 3: also going to be on YouTube. So go to YouTube.
Speaker 2: People watch it there and yeah, it's gonna be It's
Speaker 2: gonna be.
Speaker 3: A lot of fun.
Speaker 1: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Concepcion and Rosie
Speaker 1: Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcast.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Korfman.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Abuzafar.
Speaker 2: Our producers are Carmen Laurent, Dean Jonathan and Bay wack.
Speaker 1: A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
Speaker 1: songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and
Speaker 2: Heidi our discord moderator