MOVIE NEWS – Lionsgate has just released a new trailer for John Wick: Chapter 4, which promises much more heart-pounding action for the film audiences to know and love.

The upcoming film has the daunting task of upping the ante after its three predecessors already raised it to the stratosphere. John Wick is finally ready for action again, and the new trailer for the fourth instalment is ample proof of that. Three, but based on the trailer, he might be up to the challenge.

The next instalment in the franchise, John Wick: Act 4, referred to as John Wick in the trailer, promises a new set of dangers for Keanu Reeves’ former assassin. After making himself the target of virtually everyone in the criminal underworld, John is on a journey around the world full of action and survival. But that doesn’t mean he’s alone. Some old friends show up. True, at least one of them admittedly wants to kill him, it seems.

In the trailer, John exercises against a pole wrapped around a rope while his former friends and allies flash on the screen. “The Table will never stop,” says a voice, referring to the gang lords’ council, the High Table, who rules over the underworld. In the previous films, John did his best to leave his life as an assassin behind him. But he soon learned that life could not be given up so quickly as things continued to escalate until he became an enemy of the High Table itself.

Now with few allies to lean on, John seems ready to strike back with the ferocity of a cornered lion. But he won’t be alone, as is revealed when Laurence Fishburne’s Bowery King appears in a new suit and asks, “Are you ready, John?”. Keanu Reeves answers, “Yeah…” in a pretty badass way. It’s clear he’s not going to sit idly by, even after the heavy beating he’s taken in the last three movies. Unfortunately, while director Chad Stahelski promised an emotional ending in John Wick: Chapter 4, it looks like John still has a painful future ahead of him.

In the trailer, we can see the new character of Donnie Yen, John’s old friend, for the first time. However, this friendship may not end well, as John and Yen’s as-yet-unknown characters battle with swords and guns while Yen wears cool sunglasses. However, later we see Yen fighting someone else, so maybe he switched sides at some point in the movie.

Either way, John Wick: Act 4 will offer more intense and gritty action than fans expect from the series. Will there be an engaging story? Probably yes. Will it matter more than watching John kill many guys painfully and cruelly? Probably not.