Latest news with #JohnWick:Chapter3
Time of India
30-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Korean stars take Hollywood by storm: Jung Doo-hong and Choi Soo-young's epic action debut in 'Ballerina'
Ballerina From Seoul to Hollywood: How Two Korean Stars Landed Their Roles Jung Doo-hong , known as Korea's martial arts royalty, and Choi Soo-young , a beloved K-pop star who gracefully transitioned to acting, are turning heads with their bold roles in Hollywood's latest sensation, 'Ballerina.' The movie's Korean theatrical release on August 6, 2025, is highly anticipated among fans eager to see familiar faces performing thrilling action sequences with a Korean twist. Jung's invitation to Hollywood began long before, with director Chad Stahelski attempting to cast him during "John Wick: Chapter 3." Although the timing wasn't perfect, fate gave Jung a second chance in 'Ballerina.' Len Wiseman, the film's director, personally reached out to confirm Jung's key role. For Choi Soo-young, impressing casting directors with her emotional depth and physical prowess sealed her entry into this high-octane universe. Her transition from K-pop fame with 'Girls' Generation' to Hollywood action heroine is a story of perseverance, passion, and exciting new beginnings. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like France: New Container Houses (Prices May Surprise You) Container House Search Now Undo Korean Action Flair Meets Deep Emotional Storytelling 'Ballerina' isn't just your typical action movie; it's a beautifully woven tale of resilience, revenge, and redemption. Jung Doo-hong brings his signature Taekwondo and martial arts expertise as Il Seong, Eve's formidable first adversary, blending precision strikes with a compelling screen presence. Choi Soo-young's character, Katla Park, is a ballerina remarkably transformed by hardship into a fierce protector. This role demanded both breathtaking physicality and emotional depth, capturing a journey of inner conflict familiar to audiences across Asia, including India, where cinema often blends action with heartfelt storytelling. Their on-screen chemistry adds more layers to the visual feast. Jung's calm, powerful fighting style contrasts superbly with Choi's expressive, intense performance, reflecting a balance between traditional martial arts discipline and modern cinematic flair. These scenes especially resonate with Indian youth who appreciate action infused with emotional complexity-the hallmark of many Bollywood hits. Soo-young's Hollywood Debut: A New Wave of K-Culture Influence Choi Soo-young's leap from chart-topping idol to Hollywood action star symbolizes the growing global presence of K-culture. As a former member of the legendary 'Girls' Generation,' which sold over 20 million albums across Asia, Soo-young brings that resilience and versatility to the Hollywood screen. Critics have lauded her for seamlessly combining vulnerability with strength, a blend that endears her to new audiences worldwide. Her chemistry with lead Ana de Armas highlights a dynamic female partnership rarely seen in big franchises, inspiring fans and young artists everywhere. For Indian audiences, Soo-young's journey parallels beloved figures in their entertainment industries who cross between music and film, strengthening bonds between cultures and industries. 'Ballerina': A Milestone for Pan-Asian Collaborations and What It Means Going Forward Released globally in June 2025, with Korea showing it on August 6, 'Ballerina' represents a new frontier in East-West collaboration. It has already earned more than $132 million worldwide (according to Box Office Mojo, July 2025), proving that Korean actors are pivotal players, not just background names, in Hollywood blockbusters. The film's fusion of Korean martial arts heritage, nuanced storytelling, and Hollywood production values marks a notable expansion of pan-Asian cinematic achievements. This blend opens exciting doors for both the Korean and Indian film industries, encouraging similar ambitious collaborations. It showcases how shared cultural elements like martial arts and emotionally intense narratives resonate worldwide, proving the global appeal of Asian talent and stories. About 'Ballerina' 'Ballerina' is a high-stakes action thriller set within the renowned John Wick universe, focusing on Eve, a deadly assassin protecting a young ballerina named Katla Park. The film features breathtaking choreography combining martial arts and ballet elements, creating a unique visual and emotional vibe. Directed by Len Wiseman and starring Ana de Armas alongside Jung Doo-hong and Choi Soo-young, it sets a new standard for international action cinema. Korean fans can finally enjoy the film when it premieres in theaters across the country on August 6, 2025.
News18
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- News18
Ballerina X Reviews: Ana De Armas' Action-Packed Spin-Off Receives Love In India
Last Updated: Directed by Len Wisemen, the events of Ballerina act like a bridge between John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. From The World of John Wick: Ballerina, starring Ana de Armas as Eve Macarro, a ballerina-turned-assassin, has received positive reviews in India. The story of the new action-thriller, a spin-off from the John Wick universe, revolves around Eve's life. It begins by showing her past and how her father was killed by a group called Cult. She is then taken in by the Ruska Roma, who secretly trains ballerinas to become assassins. Eve trains for years and becomes a skilled assassin. She then hunts down her father's killers. Directed by Len Wisemen, the events of Ballerina act like a bridge between John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. The movie premiered in India on Friday, June 13, and the reviews on X (formerly Twitter) are mostly positive. A user wrote, 'Whenever life throws you into an abyss with an unaccomplished goal, you tend to assist someone with a similar issue in life so that you can witness them get what you're denied. #BallerinaMovie explores this 'Circle of Life" with great passion and engages us with solid action sequences. #AnaDeArmas is good and witnessing #JohnWick again makes it worthwhile. Action lovers will be thrilled, yet emotional connect is pretty low. A decent addition to spin-off Wick-verse." Whenever life throws you into an abyss with an unaccomplished goal, you tend to assist someone with a similar issue in life, so that you can witness them get what you're denied. #BallerinaMovie explores this "Circle of Life" with great passion and engages us with solid action… — Survi (@PavanSurvi) June 13, 2025 Another called Ana de Armas' Ballerina 'is pure adrenaline. No complex story, just non-stop thrill. #AnaDeArmas is, and #JohnWck steals the show even in a cameo." From the world of John Wick, Ballerina is pure adrenaline. No complex story, just non-stop thrill. #AnaDeArmas is 'It's the most faithful spinoff from Hollywood in a decade. Ana de Armas absolutely dominated the screen. Perfectly captured the DNA of the original John Wick franchise. Time to fast-track Ballerina 2 immediately," another moviegoer wrote. #BallerinaMovie It's the most faithful spinoff from Hollywood in a decade. Ana de Armas absolutely dominated the screen. Perfectly captured the DNA of the original John Wick franchise. Time to fast-track Ballerina 2 immediately. — Midhun (@1whodunnit) June 13, 2025 An individual said, 'Just finished watching Ballerina it was a solid action movie filled with revenge, stylish action, and brutal fights. Ana de Armas truly delivered and brought that magic back that made John Wick so special. Definitely a must-watch for action & Johnwick fans." Just finished watching Ballerina it was a solid action movie filled with revenge, stylish action, and brutal fights. Ana de Armas truly delivered and brought that magic back that made John Wick so special. Definitely a must-watch for action & Johnwick fans. — Vikasu (@itsvikasu) June 13, 2025 '#Ballerina delivers a sleek, high-octane spin‑off in the John Wick universe. Ana de Armas dazzles in electrifying action, though the plot feels thin and Keanu Reeves' cameo divides fans. Stylish violence and stunt work shine, but emotional depth is lacking," read another review. #Ballerina delivers a sleek, high-octane spin‑off in the John Wick universe. Ana de Armas dazzles in electrifying action, though the plot feels thin and Keanu Reeves' cameo divides fans. Stylish violence and stunt work shine, but emotional depth is lacking. — TheAbhitakes_ (@TheAbhitakes_) June 13, 2025 Besides Ana de Armas, Ballerina also stars Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Norman Reedus, and those who reprised their roles from the previous films include Keanu Reeves, Anjelica Huston, Lance Reddick, and Ian McShane. Ballerina was released in the US on June 6. Directed by Len Wisemen, the events of Ballerina act like a bridge between John Wick: Chapter 3—Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4. First Published:
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
The Trap of the Cinematic Side Quest
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. What makes the John Wick movies work isn't the premise—that John Wick, the character, is a man out for vengeance. Yes, that was the breathless elevator pitch of the first Wick installment, a cult hit in 2014 whose plot my colleague Sophie Gilbert effortlessly summed up as: 'An idiot killed his puppy and now everyone must die.' But Wick (played by Keanu Reeves) became the face of a billion-dollar franchise because of the strange, darkly cartoonish universe around him. Ballerina, a spin-off whose lumbering subtitle proclaims it as coming 'From the World of John Wick,' recognizes that true appeal only when it's half over. The story of Ballerina is generic to the point of hilarity; the original script was, in fact, a female-led action thriller unrelated to the Wick-iverse. As such, the film begins with the same setup as a hundred other revenge thrillers: A young girl, Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), sees her father gunned down by a group of mysterious assassins. Spirited away by friendly faces from the primary John Wick entries, she swears vengeance, and is trained to be a killer in the mold of, well, John Wick. Her mentor is the Director (Anjelica Huston), the matriarch of the Ruska Roma, an organization introduced in John Wick: Chapter 3 that teaches its students how to punch, kick, shoot a gun, and take a fall among the best of them. For much of Ballerina's two-hour run time, I bemoaned that the film seemed to be a Wick clone without any of the stylistic flair. It wasn't a total wash: De Armas is a charming screen presence, throwing herself at fight scenes with aplomb. She moves with a lot more grace than Reeves, who appears to be slowing down after a quadrilogy in which seemingly everyone across the globe is on his tail. But unlike the mysterious, mythic Wicks, Ballerina lacks much intrigue—especially during its first two acts, when the viewer watches Eve go through training and then embark on a few jobs around town, mowing through goons in dimly lit nightclubs for no purpose to the plot. [Read: John Wick and the tragedy of the aimless assassin] The sense of aimlessness is an issue with so many spin-offs. Think Hobbs & Shaw (which derives from the Fast & Furious movies), Bumblebee (set in the Transformers universe), or the several attempts to generate new Star Wars adventures outside of the main saga: They have to exist on a scale equivalent to their progenitors to not feel totally irrelevant, but avoid disturbing the franchise's primary timeline. Although Ballerina ostensibly occurs between the third and fourth John Wick chapters, it strives to affect neither one; the chronological placement is only to justify how Reeves (who doesn't do much in his several brief scenes) manages to show up—though having watched the other Wick movies, I do not remember his character ever having enough downtime to take on a little side quest with Eve. Ballerina ultimately succeeds as a piece of junky fun, however, because it attempts to expand the Wick canon rather than deepen its titular protagonist. Take what follows after Eve becomes emboldened to hop off the regular mission treadmill and seek payback against the strange cult that killed her father: Her journey leads her into a quaint village in the Austrian Alps, where she learns that every single inhabitant is out to kill her. Considering stopping by the curiosity shop for some Hummel figurines? Just don't turn your back to any friendly clerks. This scenario is a prime example of John Wick's signature world building. As the first Wick movie progressed, the bizarre depths in which the character lived became apparent. Everyone around our hero was connected to criminality, and any ordinary subway rider or unhoused person on a street corner might be concealing a semiautomatic to attack him with. John Wick's version of reality has its own currency (golden coins) and housing system (an intercontinental chain of hotels), as well as a set of laws that mix Samurai-like honor with feudal justice. At first, Ballerina pays little mind to any of that, but once Eve enters this cultish mountain town, the askew storytelling begins again. Finally, I was reminded of why I'd stayed interested in the Wick chronicles for all these years. [Read: Spin-Off City: Why Hollywood is built on unoriginal ideas] Yes, that includes the action filmmaking, and Ballerina features some incredibly inventive stunts of its own. One extended sequence sees Eve dueling an enemy while each wields flamethrowers; in another, she has to dispatch oncoming aggressors using belts of grenades without blowing herself up. The grim violence has a sense of humor and improvisation to it; de Armas doesn't exactly get the chance to crack jokes, but it harkens back to the Buster Keaton– and Looney Tunes–inspired mayhem at the core of John Wick. Whereas an offshoot like Hobbs & Shaw didn't understand what made its source series good (by largely ignoring the earlier films' wild internal logic), Ballerina eventually comes to terms with it—and then locks on. But despite its best efforts to appeal to the John Wick fan base, Ballerina opened below expectations during its first weekend. The box-office earnings are a possible indication of waning interest in the world of John Wick, which may be taken into account as Reeves weighs returning for another mainline entry. After all, a film like Ballerina ostensibly exists only to keep the franchise's devotees sated in the meantime. Perhaps this kind of business-minded cynicism is unhelpful, but it's unavoidable, as Hollywood flounders for ways to sustain people's interest in going to the cinema. If studios are going to spin off their biggest titles to keep those properties alive, they might as well do it as faithfully as possible. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
10-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Atlantic
The Trap of the Cinematic Side Quest
What makes the John Wick movies work isn't the premise—that John Wick, the character, is a man out for vengeance. Yes, that was the breathless elevator pitch of the first Wick installment, a cult hit in 2014 whose plot my colleague Sophie Gilbert effortlessly summed up as: 'An idiot killed his puppy and now everyone must die.' But Wick (played by Keanu Reeves) became the face of a billion-dollar franchise because of the strange, darkly cartoonish universe around him. Ballerina, a spin-off whose lumbering subtitle proclaims it as coming 'From the World of John Wick,' recognizes that true appeal only when it's half over. The story of Ballerina is generic to the point of hilarity; the original script was, in fact, a female-led action thriller unrelated to the Wick -iverse. As such, the film begins with the same setup as a hundred other revenge thrillers: A young girl, Eve Macarro (Ana de Armas), sees her father gunned down by a group of mysterious assassins. Spirited away by friendly faces from the primary John Wick entries, she swears vengeance, and is trained to be a killer in the mold of, well, John Wick. Her mentor is the Director (Anjelica Huston), the matriarch of the Ruska Roma, an organization introduced in John Wick: Chapter 3 that teaches its students how to punch, kick, shoot a gun, and take a fall among the best of them. For much of Ballerina 's two-hour run time, I bemoaned that the film seemed to be a Wick clone without any of the stylistic flair. It wasn't a total wash: De Armas is a charming screen presence, throwing herself at fight scenes with aplomb. She moves with a lot more grace than Reeves, who appears to be slowing down after a quadrilogy in which seemingly everyone across the globe is on his tail. But unlike the mysterious, mythic Wick s, Ballerina lacks much intrigue—especially during its first two acts, when the viewer watches Eve go through training and then embark on a few jobs around town, mowing through goons in dimly lit nightclubs for no purpose to the plot. The sense of aimlessness is an issue with so many spin-offs. Think Hobbs & Shaw (which derives from the Fast & Furious movies), Bumblebee (set in the Transformers universe), or the several attempts to generate new Star Wars adventures outside of the main saga: They have to exist on a scale equivalent to their progenitors to not feel totally irrelevant, but avoid disturbing the franchise's primary timeline. Although Ballerina ostensibly occurs between the third and fourth John Wick chapters, it strives to affect neither one; the chronological placement is only to justify how Reeves (who doesn't do much in his several brief scenes) manages to show up—though having watched the other Wick movies, I do not remember his character ever having enough downtime to take on a little side quest with Eve. Ballerina ultimately succeeds as a piece of junky fun, however, because it attempts to expand the Wick canon rather than deepen its titular protagonist. Take what follows after Eve becomes emboldened to hop off the regular mission treadmill and seek payback against the strange cult that killed her father: Her journey leads her into a quaint village in the Austrian Alps, where she learns that every single inhabitant is out to kill her. Considering stopping by the curiosity shop for some Hummel figurines? Just don't turn your back to any friendly clerks. This scenario is a prime example of John Wick 's signature world building. As the first Wick movie progressed, the bizarre depths in which the character lived became apparent. Everyone around our hero was connected to criminality, and any ordinary subway rider or unhoused person on a street corner might be concealing a semiautomatic to attack him with. John Wick 's version of reality has its own currency (golden coins) and housing system (an intercontinental chain of hotels), as well as a set of laws that mix Samurai-like honor with feudal justice. At first, Ballerina pays little mind to any of that, but once Eve enters this cultish mountain town, the askew storytelling begins again. Finally, I was reminded of why I'd stayed interested in the Wick chronicles for all these years. Yes, that includes the action filmmaking, and Ballerina features some incredibly inventive stunts of its own. One extended sequence sees Eve dueling an enemy while each wields flamethrowers; in another, she has to dispatch oncoming aggressors using belts of grenades without blowing herself up. The grim violence has a sense of humor and improvisation to it; de Armas doesn't exactly get the chance to crack jokes, but it harkens back to the Buster Keaton– and Looney Tunes –inspired mayhem at the core of John Wick. Whereas an offshoot like Hobbs & Shaw didn't understand what made its source series good (by largely ignoring the earlier films' wild internal logic), Ballerina eventually comes to terms with it—and then locks on. But despite its best efforts to appeal to the John Wick fan base, Ballerina opened below expectations during its first weekend. The box-office earnings are a possible indication of waning interest in the world of John Wick, which may be taken into account as Reeves weighs returning for another mainline entry. After all, a film like Ballerina ostensibly exists only to keep the franchise's devotees sated in the meantime. Perhaps this kind of business-minded cynicism is unhelpful, but it's unavoidable, as Hollywood flounders for ways to sustain people's interest in going to the cinema. If studios are going to spin off their biggest titles to keep those properties alive, they might as well do it as faithfully as possible.
Time Magazine
06-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
Ballerina Is a Worthy Addition to the John Wick Franchise
Don't be misled by the title Ballerina: there's very little traditional ballet in this John Wick spinoff, and frankly, it could use more. But this fifth installment in the Wick franchise does feature plenty of balletic violence, perhaps the next best thing to actual dancing. You begin to wonder how any fight choreographer could come up with so many variations on the classic roundhouse kick, so many ruthlessly clever chokeholds, such a kaleidoscopic menu of eye gouging, arm-breaking, and flamethrowing. The pleasures of Ballerina are both blunt and fleeting; you're not going to remember the plot—or any of the performances, perhaps save one—five minutes after the end credits role. But the picture's cartoonish brutality is cathartic. Feeling angry enough to bust some balls, literally, but don't want to cause undue harm and/or get arrested? Ballerina is your movie. Let Ana de Armas crack those nuts for you. The movie opens, classically and predicatably, with backstory: we see a young girl with a bloodied face clutching a dome-shaped music box with a twirling ballerina figure inside, its surface smeared with bloody fingerprints. We learn that her father gave her this little trinket, not long before he was killed by a mini-army of highly skilled thugs. Somehow, this newly minted orphan manages to escape their vengeance. Thanks to the intervention of Ian McShane's scary but principled Winston, she'll be raised by a chilly mother figure and ballet instructor known only as The Director, played, in a fetching array of gold-embossed shawls and velvety kimonos, by Angelica Huston. The Director also happens to be the bloody mama of the secret crime syndicate the Ruska Roma—the very organization whose clutches John Wick is seeking to escape. (If you're keeping track, the events of Ballerina take place between John Wick: Chapter 3 — Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4.) The heartbroken little girl with the ballerina music box will grow up to be Ana de Armas' Eve Macarro, a young woman bent on—what else?—avenging her father's murder. The ultra-simple plot mechanics of Ballerina are perhaps one reason de Armas —so delightfully flirty and kick-ass as a Bond accomplice in No Time to Die and so disappointing, through no fault of her own, in Andrew Dominik's Marilyn Monroe exploitation-fest Blonde —doesn't really resonate here as a performer. She's a little like that ballerina under the dome: graceful, tenacious, but ultimately more decorative than interesting. The movie's blunt 'You killed my father'-centric dialogue, characteristically laconic in the John Wick tradition, doesn't help. But de Armas has got the moves, and she's adequately dazzling in a scene where she slinks into a polar-themed nightclub to protect the ditzy daughter of some rich muckety-muck. Nobody can crotch-kick a dude like she can, particularly in a svelte sequined dress. Even if de Armas is the star of this show, there's just enough Keanu Reeves to remind you what franchise you're watching. He appears in just a few scenes, but his somber-funny Zen presence is a welcome relief from Eve's somewhat boring intensity. Gabriel Byrne shows up as a nasty villain known as the Chancellor, who has kidnaped the adorable moppet Ella (Ava Joyce McCarthy) and whisked her off to a bucolic Alpine village where a society of ruthless killers are able to raise, and train, their children in peace. Ballerina also includes a lost-sibling subplot that feels like an afterthought—but again, who's going to remember, or care? Because really, Ballerina is a stunt-person-employment extravaganza. There's no way to count how many tireless individuals get stabbed, stomped, thrown against walls, or blitzed with automatic weapons. From the movie's end credits, it appears that most of these trained professionals were hired locally in the movie's European filming locations, which include Austria, Hungary, Croatia, and the Czech Republic. Hollywood films, as we know, are increasingly being made pretty much anywhere but Hollywood—but that doesn't detract from the reality that all over the world, there are skilled pros who are eager to let themselves be set on fire, or worse. Ballerina 's director is Len Wiseman, one of the creators of the Underworld franchise, as well as the director of the fourth Die Hard movie, Live Free or Die Hard, from 2007. Here, he fulfills at least one basic filmmaking directive: Ballerina is never boring. And its attention to detail, particularly in its costumes, is admirable. Many of the operatives and assassins wear fantastic costume jewels—masses of chains, chunky heart pendants—though none are more opulent, in that grand, phoney-baloney movie-magic way, than the stacks of enameled bangles and ropes of beads worn by Houston's Ruska Roma matriarch; clearly, she's mastered the art of plugging 'Chico's necklace' into the eBay search engine. Whether we articulate it or not, this is the sort of thing we go to the movies for: larger-than-life faces, don't-try-this-at-home stunts, costumes that signal, in smart visual shorthand, a character's essence. That's what the dance is all about, with hopefully not too many bruised ribs, smashed noses, or broken bones along the way.
