No other film has done more to raise the profile of professional hitmen in the world than the John Wick series. It is for hitmen what the Godfather series was for Italian mobsters. Hitmen in John Wick are sharply dressed and highly trained superhumans, easily able to mow down legions of enemies while law enforcement is either completely absent or looking the other way.
John Wick 2 saw a continuation of the story of Wick, the best assassin in the world, as he is forced to carry out one last killing, and in doing so gets caught in a net of lies and deception that ends with his getting a bounty on his head and on the run from every other assassin in the world. Here are 10 details in the movie you might have missed.
Why Use Outdated Technology?
Many viewers saw the assassin's use of obsolete technology like switchboard phones and typewriters as just a way to add an interesting spin to the organization, even if it does not provide any practical use. But actually, using physical paper and untraceable phones instead of operating via computers is a solid security measure. It greatly reduces the possibility of a data breach via computer hacking. In case of emergency, the physical papers relating the crimes can simply be burnt and leave zero records. Also, using older phone models makes it that much harder to listen in on the conversations.
Winston Is The Head
We are introduced to Winston as simply the manager of the assassin hotel. But by the end, it is clear he is an enormously influential figure, capable of ordering the massive bounty on John's head while also being the sole reason Wick was not gunned down on the spot, but given an hour's headstart.
Winston's importance is underlined when we see his professional accounts number, which is just a string of ones. This implies that Winston is at the very top of the world that Wick is a part of, and may very well have been one of the people who started the whole thing in the first place, with his position as hotel manager a disguise to mask his true importance.
Sumo Attack
One of the assassins that try to take down John is a sumo wrestler, who John tries to incapacitate by attacking him in his groin. But that does not work, with the sumo simply shrugging off the blow. This was no coincidence. In sumo wrestling, the athletes are trained to push their testicles back into their inguinal sacks to prevent injury. It was this technique employed by the sumo which allowed him to withstand the attack, something John must have quickly realized, forcing him to employ a different mode of attack.
Affection For Cassian
There is little room for the softer emotions in John Wick's revenge-fueled escapades. And yet, despite it never being said, or the relationship really expanded upon, we can deduce that John has genuine regard for fellow hitman Cassian. In their close-quarters tussle, Cassian is shooting to kill, but John repeatedly tries to disarm him only instead of killing him. When the two have another close brawl on the subway, John stabs Cassian in his aorta, then leaves the blade there for Cassian to hold on to so he doesn't bleed to death.
Compare this to when John stabbed Ares, and then deliberately withdrew the knife to leave her to bleed to death. Cassian remains one of the very few people to survive his encounters with John Wick, and that was mainly because John was holding back and deliberately sparing his life.
The Four Coins
In the world of John Wick, you provide a single assassin coin for each service rendered to you. So the Sommelier gets a single coin in return for providing John with a selection of weapons. But the mapper gets four coins. This is because he provided John with four services. He gave him the old blueprint for the house John was preparing to storm, the modern blueprint for the same house, a map of the underground catacombs, and the keys to the gates.
Avatar of Destruction
Characters in the series often act as John's personal hypemen, letting the villains and the audience know just how screwed the people who managed to earn John's wrath are. When Winston comes to Santino to collect the finished marker, he tells Santino that his betrayal of John means Wick will now come after him.
To add weight to the ominous pronouncement, the camera pans over to a statue of a ten-armed diety. This is probably meant to reference the Indian Goddess Kali, a figure known in the west for being an unstoppable force of destruction with no equal. Much like John is, and how the more superstitious classes in the criminal world see him.
Silent Film Successor
More than enough has been said about the references and throwbacks to action series like The Matrix that John Wick is famous for. But the films actually owe a greater debt to the silent films of Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, and others. This is acknowledged in the beginning, when we see a clip from a Keaton movie playing.
Through the rest of the movie, much of the story develops without any dialogues, relying mainly on daring stunt work, and Wick is distinctly like Chalipn's 'Tramp' figure. He is a taciturn man dressed in a worn and dirty suit, thrust into a high-class world that wants to bring him down. Wick just happens to be very, very good at his job rather than being the clumsy protagonist of a silent-era comedy movie.
Not All Are Assassins
One of the most talked-about scenes from the film are the final ones when we see John walking away from Winston with a bounty on his head, while all the other people in the park turn to stare at him as a predator would at prey. The implication that everyone in the park was an assassin has led fans to wonder why assassination is such a popular career choice in the John Wick universe.
The directors of the film have since confirmed not every standby in that scene was an assassin. It only appeared to John's by-then paranoid mind that he was going to be attacked by everyone in sight. The makers were going for an Invasion of the Body Snatchers type feel, where the audience would think everyone on screen is a potential menace.
A Musical Performance
Another unexpected source of inspiration for the film was musicals and their sophisticated choreography. Once again, we have the movie pay tribute to this inspiration. The museum fight near the end is timed to keep to the beat of Vivaldi's four seasons. The gunshots in the scenes are timed to the percussion of the musical piece. That means the most badass movie of recent times turns into a bloody musical at one point, when it's not busy paying homage to silent-era comedy stars.
Not Keanu
The movies in this universe are as famous for their action as the leading man Keanu Reeves is for doing his own practical stunts in the films instead of relying on CGI. In John Wick 2, Keanu did the vast majority of stunts on his own after training extensively in preparation. But there were two stunts that were considered too dangerous, even for him.
The first scene is when John gets hit by a car. And the other scene is when John and Cassian tumble together down a flight of stairs. Those are the only scenes where it is a stunt double in the frame rather than Reeves himself.