‘John Wick 4’ director reveals the obscure videogame that inspired the film’s bird’s-eye action sequence

John Wick: Chapter 4 director Chad Stahelski has revealed the somewhat obscure video game that inspired one of the film’s most striking action sequences. The fourth installment of the blockbuster franchise — which premiered over the weekend — includes a scene in which Keanu Reeves’ titular hitman unloads a round of shotgun bullets on a room full of his adversaries, via a one-shot, bird’s eye camera sequence.

Fans initially took the top-down shot as a visual reference to Hotline Miami, an indie sensation that has long been known for employing the top-down shooter point of view. Despite the early comparisons, Stahelski has since cited the scene with a less popular inspiration, namely the 2019 Vreski-developed cult favorite The Hong Kong Massacre. 

Stahelski referenced the source in an interview with SlashFilm. “I had seen this video game and I’ll throw a shout out,” he said. “I think it was called Hong Kong Massacre — they did this top shot and we had been doing so much with the big muzzle flashes and it just kind of clicked.” The director went on to reveal that although popular in video game titles, top-down shots haven’t always translated to interesting camera sequences in live-action films. 

“No one does top shots because you look at the ground and it’s not very interesting,” he said. “[They] were never very cool with us, with lighting or choreography, because it gets old quick.” Stahelski said that he and the John Wick team were able to overcome these logistical barriers by “draw[ing] these cool lines with the muzzle flash… like Etch A Sketch.”

The director continued: “It was a different way to amp up the action and keep you in that video game mode that John Wick‘s kind of known for, that first-person shooter kind of thing.” Stahelski’s inspiration is ultimately well-placed, given that the director is currently on board to helm the live-action adaptation of Ghost of Tsushima. 

The fourth iteration of John Wick is currently enjoying both critical and commercial success, after receiving a four-star review from We Got This Covered and breaking its own franchise records at the box office. Last week, it was revealed that the titular assassin had increased his kill count to 339 across all films, taking down as many as 140 characters in Chapter 4 alone.