John Wick 4’s director and crew walk us through its stunning top-down one-shot fight

polygon.com:

Like all the John Wick movies before it, John Wick: Chapter 4 is built around action sequences designed to challenge the way movie action is normally choreographed and shot. Director Chad Stahelski was a longtime stunt man and then stunt coordinator before making his directorial debut with John Wick in 2014, and he’s turned the franchise into a showcase for ambitious fight sequences.

In John Wick 4, one of the most stunning combat scenes has battle-weary assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) charging from room to room through an abandoned, decaying building, with the camera tracking his progress in a long, unbroken shot from overhead as he guns down attacker after attacker. It’s a particularly startling shot because it moves so quickly, with so many clashes and quick shifts in direction. And John Wick is using incendiary rounds, setting some of the combatants ablaze and leaving them to burn as he keeps moving forward. Polygon spoke to Stahelski and his stunt crew about how they pulled off that shot.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Scott Rogers, second unit director: Chad Stahelski, our fearless leader and director, used to be an actual fighter, like in the ring. And he didn’t punch hard enough to win, he punched as hard as he physically could. So every John Wick movie, he’s making the best movie he can, and then within the movie, he’s making the best scene he can.

So those of us that are charged with doing the action, that’s what we’re doing in each scene, whether it’s in the club scene with the falls, and the fights, and the water, and the dogs, and all of that, that’s no less or more challenging than the cars hitting the people. There were none where we were like, Oh, this one’s easy, we’ll just