John Wick
New York, NY
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"John Wick" (2014), directed by former stuntman Chad Stahelski, starring Keanu Reeves as a retired hitman drawn back into violence after the killing of a puppy given to him by his late wife, launched a franchise built around meticulously choreographed gun-fu combat sequences and an elaborately realized criminal underworld. The film's action choreography, drawing heavily on Stahelski's own stunt-industry background, emphasized long, unbroken takes and geographically coherent fight staging, a deliberate departure from the rapid-cut editing style common in much contemporary action filmmaking, and it was widely credited with revitalizing American action cinema's approach to hand-to-hand and gun combat. The film's tightly built mythology, including its secret hotel network for assassins and its own internal criminal code and currency, gave the deceptively simple revenge premise a distinctive, richly imagined world that helped sustain and expand the story across multiple sequels. John Wick's combination of its industry-changing action choreography and its richly built criminal-underworld mythology has made it one of the most influential action franchises of the 21st century.
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