How John Wick: Chapter 4's Editor Made Donnie Yen's Caine A 'Different Beast' In One Key Way
I don't envy the editor of "John Wick: Chapter 4." Director Chad Stahelski basically used Lionsgate's money to shoot wildly extravagant action and combat sequences that went beyond anything in the previous "John Wick" movies — which, considering the action movie majesty of the "John Wick" franchise, is saying something.
Remember that club fight sequence in "Chapter 4," where Keanu Reeves' assassin faces off against stunt legend Scott Adkins in a fat suit? According to the film's stunt coordinators Stephen Dunlevy and Scott Rogers, it was actually the most challenging scene to film and believe it or not, was initially twice as long as what you see in the final movie. Then there's that entire third act that's basically one long action montage, as Baba Yaga fights his way across Paris toward his final showdown with Bill Skarsgård's Marquis Vincent de Gramont. And all of this even after Stahelski cut "John Wick: Chapter 4" down from its original four-hour runtime.
So imagine being an editor, staring at that blank Premier Pro timeline and the masses of combat footage and wondering how the hell you're supposed to make some sort of intelligible narrative out of the whole thing. Well, that was basically Nathan Orloff's job. The editor, whose past work includes cutting together "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" and working in the editing department on "10 Cloverfield Lane," told The Motion Picture Association (MPA) that working on the latest "John Wick" entry was like "taking a comb to the desert." Luckily, he had a few tricks up his sleeve, especially when it came to making Donnie Yen's character, Caine stand out amid the chaos.
Orloff's rule for Caine
Donnie Yen is a martial arts and stunt legend in his own right, having established himself in Hong Kong and mainland China with the "Ip Man" franchise before transitioning to Hollywood, eventually landing roles in "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" and Disney's live-action "Mulan." It also turns out that Chad Stahelski is a big fan of the action star, and was intent on going all out on the big fight between Keanu Reeves' John Wick and Yen's Caine in "John Wick: Chapter 4."
That fight occurs during the early stages of the film, when Reeves' hitman manages to fight off hordes of thugs that have descended on the Osaka Continental Hotel, only to be confronted by blind assassin and old friend Caine. And the fight that ensues was made that much better because of a neat trick employed by Nathan Orloff.
As the editor explained to the MPA:
"Donnie was a different beast [...] I made this decision early on that stuck: when Donnie is fighting another main character, there's no music. I wanted everyone to hear what Caine hears. I wanted people to hear that this is doable. It created this eeriness around Caine where he felt different than all the other characters."
Up until Caine enters the fray, "Chapter 4" is a predictably bombastic affair, with Wick having just battered a few opponents with a pair of nunchucks. But Orloff's rule for Caine makes for a nice change of pace. As he explained:
"When there was this music, music, music, and the nunchucks, and then John gets up, there's no music, and then Caine shows up; it's just eerily quiet. To me, that is Caine's world. We get an insight into his world because of that sound design choice."
Caine was one of the best new characters
The initial fight between Caine and John Wick in "Chapter 4," isn't, in my opinion, the most memorable "John Wick" showdown. Arguably, there's a much better scene involving Yen later on, when Caine and Wick battle their way up a Paris stairway. By the time Caine shows up, the movie's barely getting going and the action has become unrelenting already, making the actual fight a little less impactful than it would have been otherwise. That itself is just another reason why "John Wick: Chapter 4" is proof that an action movie can have too much action.
That said, it's cool to hear how Nathan Orloff navigated his way through the hours of footage he was given by using these kinds of tricks to not only enhance character but to break up the pace of the action itself. Caine is one of the more interesting characters in a movie brimming with them, both old and new. Establishing his presence through neat little sound design and editing tricks helps him stand out from that pack. That, and Donnie Yen actually encouraged Chad Stahelski and his team to develop Caine beyond being just the "old blind guy with a cane" and make him more of the "cool guy in the suit."
I was kind of hoping for one last battle between Caine and Wick, seeing as both we as an audience and Stahelski himself have been waiting for this showdown between Yen and Reeves — two of the most committed action performers in the industry — for years. Alas, we'll have to live with the kind of ok fight at the start of the film and the tag team carnage from the Paris stair scene. Unless, there's a "John Wick 5" on the way...