- Welcome back to another episode
of Scenic Fights (knife thuds)
Fight Scene Breakdown.
(upbeat techno music) (glass crashing)
(knives whishing)
I'm Logan Lo, and I'm a Pekiti-Tirsia Instructor
at Paxibellum Martial Arts.
- And I'm Pak, a judo black belt
and coach at Paxibellum Martial Arts.
- Today, we'll be breaking down the knife shop scene
from "John Wick: Chapter 3
and we have the fastest knife thrower in the world,
The Great Throwdini, to show us how valid
or not John Wick's knife throwing skills are.
Are you ready? - Let's get it.
(mouse clicks)
- They're noticing they're in a knife shop,
lots of knives. - How convenient.
- Right? Oh, and here we go.
- Oh. - Nice pass.
- Right in the butt. - Right in the butt.
Oh my God.
We have to stop this. (mouse clicks)
You see, in most knife scenes when they come,
the guy just tries to fight and force it through.
In this scene, John Wick comes in,
gets the obstruction out of the way and continues to fight.
Love that.
We'll talk more about that later.
(mouse clicks) Does a back handed throw.
- Nice. - Nice.
Good reversal.
- Flying sidekick.
Oh, right at his nuts. (chuckles)
- Oh, but he missed, Thank God!
- There would be no John Wick 4.
(Logan laughs)
- John Wick is just throwing those wild knives.
- This is pretty funny. - It is. This is awesome.
I don't throw my knives, but if I did,
I'd wanna John Wick it.
- He's a ninja. - He is a ninja.
- [Pak] A superman knife stab.
- Oh, this dude is just getting stabbed by his buddy.
- Beautiful Nidan Kosoto Gari.
Here, you see John Wick hitting an Osoto Gari
to a Nidan Kosoto Gari.
Now, in movies, we rarely see judo moves done in succession.
A lot of times we often see judo throws being
like one big massive throw. - Right.
- This was a great demonstration of using combinations.
- So it's realistic. - Oh, very realistic.
- Cool. (mouse clicks)
- Oh my God, he's not getting up from that nut shot.
- Oh my God. I would not want that to happen to me.
John Wick is going to town with these knives.
There's more knife action.
- He's got- - One after another,
after another, right in the forehead.
- He got aggression.
Look at that, bam.
He's just going for it right in the forehead.
- Oh, Jesus.
- [Logan] Well that guy's not getting up.
- [Pak] Oh, look, that's Tiger Chen.
- Did a nice disarm there and hatchet action or tomahawks.
Wow. Look at these guys go.
Now, this is good.
Not a lot of blocking, but a lot of passing and striking,
I like that.
Arm break.
And bam, we have another arm break.
But it looks like their arms are okay somehow.
- (laughs) He got thrown with a bitch slap.
- Wait, is that a legitimate judo throw?
- Yeah. I'll call it a bitch slap Tai Otoshi.
- Of course you would. (mouse clicks)
- [Pak] That looked like an iron palm push from Tiger Chen.
- A pass. Throwing Tiger right into the case.
- [Pak] Beautiful Osoto Gari right there.
- Oh man.
Let's talk about that. (mouse clicks)
In our very first John Wick video,
I talked about how if anyone throws anything at me,
a kick, a punch, I'm slicing that.
I'm making mincemeat outta that. Awesome.
- Maybe he watched your breakdown.
- Maybe he did.
(mouse clicks)
Okay, nice break.
- How many times does an arm break? (chuckles)
- Apparently a lot.
Oh, he needs an Excedrin for that.
Throws him into the case.
Okay, we have another standoff here.
Again, he could have just passed it, right?
As he did initially, but he doesn't
because you wanna to build up the tension.
I can't watch this. - Oh God.
Oh, Jesus Christ.
Not the eye. (mouse clicks)
You gotta think about how dramatic
and nerve-wracking it is knowing you're about to die
by eye stab.
- Yeah, that's not a good way to go.
- Sorry, Tiger.
(mouse clicks) All right, he's done.
He's walking away. - All right.
- [Pak] Unfinished business though.
- [Logan] Roger will get up. Roger, get up.
And no.
- Ooh. (mouse clicks)
- He's not getting up. - Nah.
- So, now, we're gonna demonstrate and grade how realistic
and accurate the knife and judo work was.
Now, remember, this grade is only for that.
In terms of entertainment, this was pretty dope.
What do you think?
- It was very fun to watch. I absolutely agree.
- And remember kids, don't do this at home.
If ever confronted with a knife, run.
Pak, you ready for this? - Let's get it.
- The first thing I wanna talk about between Roger Yuan
and John Wick is the karate chop that John Wick does
for the backhand number two, he does this.
Notice that it's a karate chop rather than a hard block.
Why is that?
The reason why is because in Kali,
we always assume that we have a weapon.
So, here as we do the karate chop,
I'm really doing what's called a capture and a cutout.
So, we actually see that happen in the following scene.
So, if he follows up with a Number Two,
here's my capture and cutout, which is the karate chop.
I come in now here, notice that in our many other films
I say I hate when the guy tries to force the weapon through.
It's not gonna work. Pak is much stronger than me.
He's never gonna let me go.
However, I can capture and cut out, why?
Because he's pushing out anyways. He wants to push out.
I let him push out and then I would follow up immediately
with a backhand to the throat.
However, John Wick notices, 'cause he's John Wick,
another assailant coming.
So, instead, he redirects
and throws his weapon towards that assailant
which is highly unlikely, but he is John Wick.
So, in this very next scene,
John Wick does a reversal on Roger.
Roger comes in with the backhand Number Two,
stop by John Wick
and then he paced the assailant weapon hand to his hip.
I like that
because you don't want a weapon hand floating around
and twisting around.
That's a nice little detail.
Then John Wick bent the arm, twisted it
and plunged it into Roger finishing the fight.
That is orthodox very standard Kali work, I love it.
Okay, and with this very next scene is passing
and blending versus blocking, which is he passes the weapon
and he blends with that force to come in with his own force.
Why do I like that over a block?
I'm a smaller person
and generally I don't want to be overwhelmed with an attack.
There's always a chance that if you do a block
you're overwhelmed and the weapon proceeds.
Whereas with a pass, the danger is getting out
of the arc of the attack.
So, what I don't wanna do
is I don't want to walk into the arc of the attack.
I want to pass and blend the opponent's force
away from me as I launch my own attack.
Note that for the first guy
he does a pass and blend attacking to the head.
And then for the second guy
he does a pass and blend attacking for the throat.
I personally would prefer the later
because then I can attack soft body targets,
less chance of me breaking something on me.
Regardless, great Kali fighting by John Wick.
So, for this next scene, you can really tell
that John Wick has had some serious Kali training.
Here, there's another Number Two attack
which is stopped by John Wick.
John Wick then launches what looks to be a kidney shot,
then comes around and does an arm break here.
Am I gonna break it?
Ideally, that's what I want.
I think Chad would disagree with me
because again, the person can walk around.
But what we want is we want the shock of it
to at least wrench it so that arm sustains damage.
That damage accumulates
and that's really what all fighting is, right?
You wanna sustain as little damage to yourself as possible
and maximize the damage to the other person
whether it be incremental or exponential.
- Okay, so now, let's take a look at some of the creative
judo in this sequence.
Here... - Wait.
I got 2.5 million views on my John Wick video,
you're not throwing me.
Throw Chad, Chad.
- Now the real star is here.
I got this. After you.
- Thanks, Chad. I was actually afraid of breaking Logan.
- Good thing is I'm unbreakable, baby.
- Let's get it.
In this scene, John Wick hits a beautiful Osoto Gari
to a Nidan Kosoto Gari.
They're tied up.
John Wick just blocked to strike,
enters with an Osoto Gari, kicks the leg
but doesn't really get the throw like he thought he would.
So, he follows up with what's called a Nidan Kosoto Gari
by kicking out that base leg. (Chad thuds)
This is a beautiful example of chaining your attacks.
The likelihood of using one single attack
and working all the time is very low.
So, what you wanna do is start an attack
and follow up with several other attacks
until you get the result of throwing your opponent.
Now, let's see that in full speed.
(Chad thudding)
That's how you do Osoto Gari to Nidan Kosoto Gari.
In this scene, you could see John Wick smacking his opponent
and throwing him to the ground.
Now, it's hard to tell which throw he actually executed
because the lower extremities are cut off in the footage.
However, I'm gonna use my best guess
from observing how the opponent fell
by assuming that John Wick executed a Tai Otoshi.
To execute this throw, I wanna first have wrist control here
and normally I would slap my opponent but
because Chad's not Logan.
I'm gonna just firmly place my hand against his neck,
do my back step, one, two, extend my leg here.
Make sure your heels are up and to throw,
I'm gonna pull this arm,
push against the neck and extend my leg.
Now, let's see that in full speed.
(Chad thuds)
In this scene, John Wick blocks a kick from Tiger Chen
and he goes into what I like to call
a hopping or skip Osoto Gari.
Now, what we normally do in a Osoto Gari, we're tied up,
we have upper body control.
I'm pulling him and I step in for that throw.
Here, John Wick and Tiger Chen are in kicking range.
Tiger Chen kicks, John Wick blocks
and snaps it down to the floor,
forcing Tiger Chen in a bladed stance.
And what John Wick does is he covers that distance
by skipping right into this configuration,
throwing him with the Osoto Gari.
Now, let's see that in full speed.
(hand thuds) (Chad thudding)
(Chad thuds)
And now, to go over John Wick's knife throwing skills.
We have the world's most fastest,
most accurate knife thrower in the world with 44 records,
a world champion in knife and tomahawk throwing.
I throw people, he throws knives.
We got the great Throwdini, let's get it.
- Hey, Pak, nice to meet you. Excuse me, over here.
Logan, let's throw some knives, man.
- So, Throwdini.
Can Jon wick actually throw as fast as he threw?
- No. - Okay.
- What is good news? How he threw is 100% correct.
- I see sometimes people throw kind of like that
and it's just a straight shot
and other times there's like a twirl action.
Is there a difference between those two?
- My style, which is a circus style, end-over-end.
- End-over-end. The twirling kind.
- Yeah. - Gotcha.
- The knife is actually spinning in the air.
The other style would be like a no spin
in which index finger is on the knife
and when it's thrown, the finger stops it from spinning
and it goes straight. - Oh, I see.
- And the other way would be like a forced half spin
like this where the hand slows the knife out
and makes it just take a half turn at any distance.
- Is it a preference type of thing
or is there some benefit to one over the other?
- I think circus style end-over-end is the most accurate
of a spin style.
- Yeah, you don't want to give your insurance manager
a heart attack, I get it.
So, one other thing I noticed was that I saw
and I'd never seen this before, I saw John Wick throw it
as an ice pick grip, which is like the reverse grip.
Is that possible?
- I would say it's extremely unlikely.
It's not that somebody's gonna come along and say,
"Hey, I can do it, maybe you can."
But in 26 years of throwing... - Oh.
- I've never thrown it that way
and I've never seen anybody else throw it that way.
- Well, you are the Great Throwdini.
So, I'll take your word for it.
- Thank you.
- Can you show the audience
and myself how to throw like John Wick?
- No problem.
So, grab it by the blade like so,
just bring it behind me, almost like I'm tapping my shoulder
and then out and down with my arm.
- Do you break your wrist when you go?
- No, the wrist stays solid. - Okay.
- And the knife just leaves my hand
as I come down to the bottom of the blade.
Do you mean to have your throwing arm side back?
- For me, it's comfortable to put my opposite foot
in the front. - Okay.
- And then I turn my body into the throw a little bit
so I get the mechanics of my body into that knife as well.
- Okay, now, how many times have you actually hit a person
when you didn't want to hit a person?
- We don't talk about that since the accident.
- Gotcha. Let's do it.
(knife thuds)
- And that's how a knife is supposed to stick.
So, Throwdini, you just threw that. Are you happy with this?
- I'm very happy with it. - Okay.
- That's the way it should stick.
Knife is horizontal to the ground
and that the axis this way, vertical,
is perfectly straight up and down with the board.
I was throwing that half spin from seven feet away.
If this were being thrown to stick into someone,
you would want that knife to always get there point first.
Down like this is just gonna hit and fall over like this,
it's just gonna rotate and drop back down.
- Throwdini, those were a lot of knives
and axes being thrown.
Was there a particular scene that you really liked?
- I particularly like that ending scene
when he throws a tomahawk, slightly different than this.
This tomahawk has 12-inch handle.
- Okay.
- So, I would throw it like this.
- Right.
- But the one they used in that scene
had a very long handle.
So, John Wick didn't throw it this way.
He had both hands on, brought it back over his head
and then threw it that way.
- Okay. - Released,
spins through the air
and gets to its target exactly like that.
It was perfect.
- So, you feel that Keanu Reeves, he was taught correctly.
- Nailed it. Perfect.
- If you guys wanna find out more about Throwdini,
visit his website, knifethrower.com.
Thanks a lot, buddy. - Thank you, Logan.
Thanks for having me.
(upbeat techno music) (glass crashing)
- What a fantastic fight scene.
Action packed, high paced,
chaotic in the best ways possible.
Shout out to the choreographers.
They really nailed down the complex sequences
in both Judo and Kali.
- Absolutely, and if there is any critique we'd give it,
it comes from Throwdini
and how the knife throwing wasn't completely accurate.
So, in light of all this,
I think a fair grade would be, what do you think?
Like an A minus?
- Absolutely. This scene gets an A minus.