By Ernest Kearney — Lionsgate’s’ quartet of John Wick movies constitutes one of the most successful film franchises in cinema history having amassed over a billion dollars in ticket sales between 2014 to 2023.
Set in a mythical Noir world of international assassins these extraordinarily brutal and bloody Grand Guignol bullet ballets are part homage to filmmakers like Kurosawa, John Woo and Sam Peckinpah and part surgeon general warnings from PETA: “Don’t never mess with a man’s puppy!”
The movies, starring Keanu Reeves as the one-man Luca Mosca-suited juggernaut, have revitalized the action film genre with the creation of a new sub-genre “gun-fu.”
There are countless websites that attempt to calculate the combined body count from the four Wick flicks (best estimate is a smidge under 500,) while also cataloging the means by which John Wick dispatches his foes: Guns (all kinds,) martial arts (judo, Brazilian Jiu-jitsu, karate, Tae Know Do, Sambo, aikido,) as well as swords, knives, nunchucks, pencils, library books, kali fighting sticks, playing cards, a horse and even a cigarette.
Actor, writer and human pogo stick Woody Fu attempts to recreate the murderous mayhem of the Wick-verse in the Shirley Dawn Studio at the Thymele Arts Complex and through sheer cleverness succeeds pretty darn well.
With the emphasis on silliness not slaughter and a pretty good Keanu Reeves impression, Fu’s show is hardly a cinematic epic, but, absolutely, great fun.
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Playing During The Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024
at
5481 Santa Monica Blvd
Friday June 28 2024, 8:00 PM | 45 mins (Shirley Dawn Studio)
Saturday June 29 2024, 8:00 PM | 45 mins (Kansas Room)
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For Tickets and Additional Information Go To: www.hollywoodfringe.org
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