In a non-action one, the very first scene: John Wick bloodily punches a makiwara while The Bowery King dramatically quotes the poem written at the entrance of the gates of Hell in Dante's Inferno while making his way to let Wick loose from his hideout. It's an incredibly atmospheric start to the film that lets everyone know that they're in for a wild ride. And certain sound setups made it so that every punch rhythmically shakes the theater.
Bowery King: I am the way into the city of woe. I am the way into eternal pain. I am the way to go among the lost. Before me there were no created things but those that last forever— AS! DO! I! Abandon all hope, you who are about to enter here...you are now in the presence of the MOTHERFUCKING KING!
The simple exchange between the Bowery King and John afterwards also ramps up the awesomeness to come.
Bowery King: You ready, John? John:(Stops his punching and turns around)Yeah.
The immediately following sequence in the desert showcases exactly how scary John Wick can be at the top of his game, fully rested since the events of Chapter 3 and spending the last few months training vigorously. Remember The Elder, who Chapter 3 established as the "Man above the Table," who is so notoriously hard to track down that John himself passed out in the middle of the desert trying to find him*or at least, his precursor last time? Well this time, John tracks him down and kills him in the first five minutes of the film, with the hard cut from the Bowery to the desert implying that barely any time has passed since John left for Morocco, making a direct beeline from New York to the Elder's location to put a bullet in his skull.
The Elder telling John that killing him will accomplish nothing does little to lessen the satisfaction of watching John personally execute the Man Behind The Man after no-selling his villainous speech. If anything, the Table's knee-jerk reaction afterward suggests that even if they can keep replacing their ranks, the killing of the current Elder like he was nothing spurring them to give emergency powers to the Marquis to more directly intervene suggests that the 12 members of the High Table are more scared of John than he is of them.
The Elder: None of us can escape who we are, and no one escapes the Table. And the only way John Wick will ever have freedom or peace, now or ever, is in death. John:I know. The Elder: I'm afraid you've come a very long way for nothing. John:Yeah...not really. BANG.
For his part The Elder doesn't flinch at the prospect of being killed and is ultimately proven right. The Marquis' actions show that the High Table are through playing with John, and he destroys the Osaka Continental just to prove that point to him. It's made clear that it's not feasible for even badass One-Man Army John Wick to beat the High Table in a straight fight, because he'll run out of bullets before they run out of men, and if hadn't chose to pursue the duel, regardless of their fear of John, the High Table would have won.
The fight in the Osaka Continental perfectly showcases the combat prowess of both the Marquis de Gramont's men and the Osaka Continental's men.
Chidi, De Gramont's Dragon, barely flinches as he blocks the first arrow fired at him with his arm. He then pulls it out before ordering his men to attack.
The Osaka Continental's hospitality, despite armed with conventional weaponry like bows and arrows, proved to be more than a match to High Table's elite forces. Namely, the Armored Mooks John fought in the New York Continental, and the new Elite Mooks wearing similar Kevlar suits John wore, bearing the Marquis' emblem. To put it simply, both sides showcases their CMOA.
Koji, the Manager of the Osaka Continental, puts both his pistol and his katana to very good use. Killing several of the Armored Mooks.
For action fans, the duel between Koji and Caine, played by two legends of action films Hiroyuki Sanada and Donnie Yen, while short, is definitely a dream to see on-screen.
Akira, befitting the role of the Hotel's Concierge, has her moments as well. Namely, using bow and arrows to nail several of De Gramont's Armored Mooks to the wall. Special mention must be her kill to one of the Elite Mooks, using a pair of knives as impromptu icepicks and essentially climbing the Mighty Glacier to death.
John Wick. With. Nunchucks.Once again thrown through a glass display box by an Elite Mook in the Continental's gallery, John stumbles to get back on his feet before he realizes that breaking open the box has given him access to a pair of nunchucks. He starts out rather sloppily striking with them as though he were using a baseball bat, but then he very quickly adapts, using them to disarm mooks and grapple them to the floor, eventually taking out enemies near instantaneously with them as he whips at their necks, snapping them and splattering the gallery with their blood.
At one point John takes a few seconds to do an elaborate flourish, like he's channeling the spirit of Bruce Lee. It seems like for once in the entire series John is actually having fun fighting, and just wants to show off a bit.
Donnie Yen outdoes his Blind Weaponmaster act from Rogue One in spades as even without eyes, Caine is a badass killer. By the film's end, he is the only character John never beats in a straight fight.
In the fight at the Osaka Continental, Caine stages motion-activated doorbell ringers that go off and alert him when enemies are near so he can take them down. At one point, he even performs Ip Man's iconic Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs on a mook!
John is constantly on the edge during his first fight with Caine, despite wielding both nunchucks and a pistol. He knows for sure how badass Caine is and takes every chance he can get to make Caine leave, even playing dead at one point.
At the club in Berlin, Caine takes advantage of his blindness by throwing a flashbang at Killa's men:
What is even scarier than John Wick or Caine coming after you? John Wick and Caine working together. Fed up with the Marquis's unfairness of sending a literal army of hitmen after John to stop him from fighting a duel that the Marquis won't fight himself and forced Caine to do it, Caine decides to team up with John after it's apparent that he would need help taking down Chidi's men to get to the duel in time, and it is glorious. The two old friends work together in tandem without even missing a step and mow down Chidi's men on the long flight of stairs in just a couple minutes.
One can only imagine how skillful Caine was before he willingly gave up his vision. Moreover, how unstoppable were Wick and Caine at their prime?
Out of the hundreds of hitmen and assassins that went up against John Wick and died trying over the years, in the end and even if John only allowed it to happen, Caine is ultimately the one who manages to do the impossible: he is the one who killed John Wick.
Even after being shot several times (including in the ass), Killa is able to more than handle himself against John, which includes a rather impressive roundhouse kick and dragging him by the tie up some stairs, then tossing him over a balcony.
As befitting a character played by Scott Adkins, Killa proved to be one hell of a fighter, becoming one of a few fighters in the series capable of matching John blow by blow, despite running scared of him at first. One of his prominent moves is spinning and clotheslining John with his arm.
Winston confronting the Marquis with the terms of the duel, keeping his cool and very bluntly stating that victory in the duel will result in John walking free and the New York Continental rebuilt and reconsecrated with him as the manager.
It's also possible it was a Batman Gambit. He openly tried to manipulate the Marquis into the duel, while pretending it was just out of self-interest. The Marquis seemed to fall for it, then sadistically "informed" Winston that Winston's neck would be on the line too. It's possible the Marquis would not have gone for it at all if he couldn't hurt Winston, and Winston was faking ignorance of the rules.
John tearing his way across Paris to reach the Sacré-Cœur Basilica before sunrise for the final act. Horde after horde after horde of assassins come after him as his bounty skyrockets to forty million dollars. He's assaulted in traffic and repeatedly smashed with cars. He's cornered in apartments by men armed with Dragon's breath incendiary shotguns. He's forced to fight his way up a lengthy staircase, only to get thrown back down when he reaches the top. He's alone. But he's also John Wick, Baba Yaga, the one you send to kill the fucking boogeyman. None of this can stop him. Every single asset the Marquis can bring against John, he does, and John still arrives at the duel on time.
John's mastery of Car Fu shines as he races to the Arc de Triomphe in an attempt to get assassins off his tail, stealing one's car and then using it as a battering ram to send others flying backwards against walls. Losing both car doors at some point during the chase only serves to be an advantage as he picks his pistol up from the ground, now able to more easily aim and fire while driving. The car chase comes to a head when John is sent on a collision course with Chidi's vehicle, resulting in the two jousting with their cars, drifting at the last minute and rear-ending each other.
Cornered at the Arc de Triomphe by both the assassins and Chidi and his men, John proceeds to circle the entire roundabout on foot, using the busy Parisian traffic to his advantage as he uses speeding cars for cover while luring assassins out to get ran over by them. Chidi acquiesces by throwing John headfirst into traffic several times, with John returning the favour. Neither of them are perturbed as they both walk off hit-and-runs that incapacitate the rest of the mooks instantly.
Martial arts fans will be amazed with the Serial Escalation as shown through the application of throwing techniques throughout the films, exemplified in an apotheosis here when sort of mixed with Car Fu. John uses various throws, such as kote-gaeshinote A three-dimensional wrist lock in which the defender whips the attacker around a circle by their arm and then slams the lock on, forcing them to either dive through the air to avoid the locking pressure (if they are trained to do so) and onto whatever ground surface (soft, hard, jagged, whatever!) there is, or else suffer a debilitating spiral fracture along their wrist and forearm, to actually throw his assailants into oncoming traffic, surely instantly murdering them in one of the most brutal yet awe-inspiring fashions possible (and no less awesome whether it was a lucky happenstance or actually planned by the expert warrior).
When faced with the assassins armed with Dragon's Breath shotguns, he's quick to procure one of his own from the first assassin he downs. What follows is a breathtaking, spectacular Oner that seemingly channels Hotline Miami with its top-down view as John fights his way through the entire building, blasting through the remaining mooks with explosive fervor, all punctuated by the badass reprise of Le Castle Vania's "Shots Fired" and "LED Spirals" from the first movie.
In conjunction with this, while Chidi manages to pin him dead to rights towards the end, and Caine is the one to deliver final injuries; it's telling that it took that much to finally bring John down. Multiple car hits, dozens upon dozens of bullet impacts (remember, he might have two layers of bulletproof suit around him, but that doesn't cushion the blows much, and the vest did have to take quite some rounds as the clatter of pancaked bullets made clear when removed it for the final duel), a multi-story building fall onto a van, getting knocked down a lot of stairs, plus one stab to the hand.
Chidi, like Kirill, Cassian, Ares, and Zero before him, proved why being The Dragon to the Big Bad warrants a villainous CMOA. He was every bit the Implacable Man John was, withstanding several crashes in the Arc de Triomphe, knocked around by John around several cars as well, and after all that, a nasty fall down a staircase. Despite all that, he still continued to follow the man to prevent him from going to the basilica. During the battle on the steps to Sacré-Cœur, he did what many dragons before him did not, and something only a few could boast about: have John Wick dead to rights.
The Tracker/Nobody has his own moment of awesome when he finally decides to pull a Heel–Face Turn and helps John and Caine take out Chidi, to repay John for saving his dog's life from Chidi earlier.
He had a few moments as well during the fight in the building with the Dragon's Breath Mooks earlier. No kevlar suits to protect him from gunshots, what did he use? His freaking backpack. Once he spots a Mook right in front of him, he turns his back, and lets the pack take the hit.
It also has a concealed vest with a Glock for a frontal protection. Because the cowboy-slash-vagrant motif only goes so far.
Like Sofia Al-Azwar, The Tracker is every bit The Beastmaster, using his trusty partner to snag some kills. The icing? He shouts his commands in English, allowing the audience to know what comes next for the helpless target, including the aforementioned Chidi, right before finishing him with a headshot.
Having a mutilated hand didn't weaken his aim with his rifle one bit. Or stop him from punching the stuffing out of any mook unfortunate enough to get within his arms' reach.
Chidi throws Nobody's dog into a car windshield. The dog gets up from the hit faster than the humans did.
John executing The Marquis is satisfying on its own, but what makes it better is how smug the villain is in his attempt to claim the coup de grâce and be the man to kill John Wick, and Winston reminding him John never fired his third round against Caine. The Marquis can only muster a brief Oh, Crap! expression before John fires that round into his head. note It's possible Winston deliberately distracted him to buy John time, wanted de Gramont to know what was coming, or both.
While his freedom was short-lived, John got out of the criminal underworld. He no longer had any targets to exact revenge upon, no debts to be repaid, and no bounty on his head. John Wick got what he wanted and he died a free man.
A conversation between the Harbinger and the Marquis the night before the duel implies that if Wick were to be victorious in combat the following morning, not only would it clear his name in the eyes of the entire criminal underworld, but it would forever shake the credibility of the High Table, having allowed a man who was excommunicado to beat them at their own game without outstepping their rules. John Wick didn't just die a free man - it's likely that he brought the High Table's reputation as all-powerful rulers of the underworld down with him.
In a non-action example, the shot of the sun rising over Paris as John and Caine prepare for their duel is simply stunning, giving the feel that Dawn of an Era is fast approaching.
