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John Wick Chapter 4 was shot and due for release around the same time as the covid lockdown hit the world (Keanu had come off shooting a fourth Matrix film too). Now finally with the film rightly waiting for a big screen release fans are keen to know just what the emotional ending could mean for future films.
It’s an ending that was inspired by The Hagakure a Japanese code of ethics that devoted its teachings to samurai warrior and is regarded as both a practical and spiritual guide. “We kind of took the way of dying – or the way we live well to die well – as the theme,” said director Chad Stahelski.
Keanu Reeves says, ‘We had the opportunity [to do another film] because the audience [response to] Chapter Three, and we were like, ‘What was the Why?’” (Reeves means referring to the reason for Chapter 4 to exist). “And when Chad and I was talking, the Why? was death – and it was John Wick’s death. For him to get his peace, or freedom, in a way … that was the reason to make the movie. It can’t just be, ‘Let’s do another one.’ It was really about death, or a way of dying. We were really inspired by the Hagakure…
Reeves continued, ‘“If I just looked at from [the perspective of] John – John Wick – maybe him at the end on the stairs,” he says. “When he says ‘Helen.’ That, for me, after like eight years of playing the role and after shooting the [massive fight on the other set of stairs], that part that was [a poignant link] to the past.”
Whether there could be a fifth film is open to debate with the final scene being a little vague i that Wick is never shown as actually dead meaning that there could be some sort of faked death and wouldn’t make much sense – Why would Wick go through all the fire fights and big brawls if he could just fake his own death?
There si of course a prequel option with Wick settling down into retirement with his wife but such a film would require a younger Keanu despite him never seeming to age but he told fans, “Yeah, man, I age,”.
Related feature: John Wick Chapter 4 review
