2 action icons and a pop star take 'John Wick 4' to new heights
No Hollywood franchise is doing ballistic, balletic, bone-crunching fight action better than the "John Wick" series — and in its newest installment, a murderer's row of talent joins Keanu Reeves to take the hit-man saga to the next level.
Fleshing out the western- and jidaigeki-influenced underworld of "John Wick: Chapter 4" as the titular man in black ramps up the body count in his quest for vengeance, stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski tapped a bounty of top international action stars to complicate his antihero's journey.
Many of the 169-minute sequel's best sequences, however, belong to a trio of faces who are new to the franchise — some of whom could return to the ever-expanding Wick-verse.
Hiroyuki Sanada as Shimazu Koji
Japanese screen legend was initially set to reunite with his "47 Ronin" co-star Reeves in "John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum" but had to drop out due to a training injury. A few years later, Stahelski called about a new role that had been written just for him: Shimazu
