‘WOODY FU: ONE MAN JOHN WICK’ – Smart, Simple, Silly…Who Could Ask For Anything More?

By Ernest KearneyLionsgate’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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Woody Fu: One Man John Wick

Playing During The Hollywood Fringe Festival 2024

at

Asylum @ Thymele Arts 

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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Ernest Kearney - author
Written by

An award-winning L.A. playwright and rabble-rouser of note who has hoisted glasses with Orson Welles, been arrested on three continents and once beat up Charlie Manson. His first play, "Among the Vipers" was a semi-finalist in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition and was featured in the Carnegie-Mellon Showcase of New Plays. It was produced at the NPT Theater in Ashland, Oregon and Los Angeles’ celebrated Odyssey Ensemble Theatre. His following play, “The Little Boy Who Loved Monsters” was produced at The Hollywood Actors Theater, where he earned praise from the Los Angeles Times for his “…inordinately creative writing.” The play went on to numerous other productions including Berlin’s The Black Theatre under the direction of Rainer Fassbinder who wrote in his program notes of Kearney, “He is a skilled playwright, but more importantly he is a dangerous one.” Ernest Kearney has worked as literary manager or as dramaturge for among others The Hudson Theater Guild, Nova Diem and the Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, where he still serves on the play selection committee. He has been the recipient of two Dramalogue Awards and a finalist or semi-finalist, three times, in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. His work has been performed by Michael Dunn, Sandra Tsing Loh, Jack Colvin and Billy Bob Thornton, and to date, either as playwright or director, he has upwards of a hundred and thirty productions under his belt, including a few at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater as puppeteer. Kearney remains focused on his writing, as well as living happily ever after with his lovely wife Marlene. His stage reviews and social essays can be found at TheTVolution.com and workingauthor.com. Follow him on Facebook.

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