Spoilers for all previous John Wick entries will remain unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
"In Slavic mythology... the Kikimora is a spirit that exists in the shadows. To those with darkness in their hearts, she can be vengeful. But to the innocent, she can be a protector. It's up to you to choose."
— Nogi
Ballerina (marketed as From the World of John Wick: Ballerina) is a 2025 neo-noir action thriller film, a spinoff of the John Wick film series and the fifth film in it. It is directed by Len Wiseman (with previous John Wick director and producer Chad Stahelski onboard to supervise reshoots uncredited, particularly actions scenes), written by Shay Hatten, and stars Ana de Armas, Gabriel Byrne, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Norman Reedus with appearances by franchise veterans Keanu Reeves, Anjelica Huston, Ian McShane and Lance Reddicknote .
Set between the events of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum and John Wick: Chapter 4, the film follows Eve Macarro (de Armas), a young woman who trained as both a ballerina and covert assassin under the Ruska Roma and seeks revenge against the cult of hitmen led by the Chancellor (Byrne) that killed her father.
The film was released on June 6, 2025. Not to be confused with either the 2023 South Korean film Ballerina or the 2016 animated film of the same name.
Previews: Trailer 1
, Extended Look, Trailer 2, Trailer 3.
Ballerina includes examples of the following:
- Advertising by Association: The film has the subtitle From the World of John Wick.
- Agony of the Feet: The viewer is not spared the expected (bloody) effects of intensive ballet training on Eve's feet.
- Always Someone Better: Despite Eve being an effective fighter and ploughing through numerous enemies in the movie, when she is confronted with John Wick himself it is made very clear that he is on an entirely different level. The only reason she even survives the fight is that Wick is sympathetic to her situation and willing to be merciful.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- It's unclear if Eve goes into Daniel Pine's room because she suspects that he booby trapped the door or would have gone through the window anyway.
- Who put a hit out on Eve at the end? Was it The Director, who is forced to do away with her because her actions violated a long-standing truce between the Ruska Roma and The Cult? Or was it The Cult, who are doing so as revenge for killing so many of their members, including their leader?
- An Arm and a Leg: Eve tears off the arm of a mook she kills since it bears the mark of the Hallstatt cult. She takes the severed limb to the Director in order to demand information about the cult.
- And Starring: "With Ian McShane and Keanu Reeves".
- Badass Bystander: Eve goes to a remote mountain village after being told the Cult has a stronghold there. Upon arrival she finds that literally everyone there is part of the cult, meaning she has to fight off waitresses and cooks at the local restaurant upon realizing they are all trying to kill her.
- Bait-and-Switch: As Eve drives away from the scene of her latest hit, the camera pulls up and back like it's preparing for a scene change, only for her to get T-boned in the background. The camera quickly moves back in as Eve's car is shunted back into the alley.
- Balcony Escape: How Eve gets to Daniel Pine. She rents the room right next to his in the Prague Continental and breaks into his room by climbing out the window and shimmying along a ledge.
- Batman Gambit: It's implied the Director sends John Wick to hunt Eve while knowing that John would sympathize with a fellow Ruska Roma seeking revenge, and thus turn on the Cult — given that the Cult has apparently been a constant headache for as long as the Director has been in charge of the Ruska Roma and threatens to declare a war, and that no one in the High Table likes them, it works out in her favour.
- Battle Butler: As with previous Continental Hotel staff, the folks running the Prague Continental show that they're prepared to deal with clients who don't respect the place's Truce Zone rules in lethal ways.
- Beam-O-War: A rare mundane example. Dex uses a flamethrower against Eve in the battle at Hallstatt, and she pulls a fire hose against him. They both scream as they do this, in a very animesque fashion. Eve eventually closes in enough to narrow the hose spray from a wide angle to a jet, soaking his flamethrower and interrupting the pilot flame.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Eve's flamethrower duel with Dex ends with Dex losing all of his hair and Eve with all of hers intact, despite plenty of close calls.
- Bloodier and Gorier: Unlike the film it spun off from, which was more subdued in it's violence. Eve's Roaring Rampage of Revenge leaves a lot more blood in her wake, especially when she gets her hands on some grenades, turning several cultists into Ludicrous Gibs.
- Bodyguard Babes: The Kikimora—as per their dual role as punisher of the guilty and protector of the innocent—are bodyguards as well as assassins. Eve's training includes a scene where she has to move through a Killing House type shooting gallery while shielding a fellow trainee from assassins, and her first assignment involves protecting a client of the Ruska Roma from a kidnapping attempt.
- Bottomless Magazines: Although Eve's flamethrower does eventually run out of fuel, it still contains far too much fuel for the small tank it uses instead of backpack mounted tanks.
- Bittersweet Ending: Eve succeeds in getting her revenge on the Chancellor and freeing Ella, but her breaking the truce between the cult and the Ruska Roma puts a $5 million contract on her head, not to mention that she lost her sister Lena shortly after finally reuniting with her. John and Charon will also eventually die when the events of John Wick: Chapter 4 come around.
- Booby Trap: Daniel Pine does this to the door to his room at the Prague Continental, sticking a gun to it so that whoever opens the door will be shot. This is what ends up happening to one of the assassins after him in the hotel.
- Call-Back:
- The Cult resorts to doubling the $2 million bounty they put on Pine's head, hoping to tempt someone greedy enough to risk breaking the Prague Continental's rules and conduct business on the premises, the exact same amounts that got Ms. Perkins to break the New York Continental's rules. It works out just as poorly for them as it did for her.
- Like John Wick: Chapter 2, the main villain is Killed Mid-Sentence via Boom, Headshot! while gloating about their "victory" by a High Table assassin seeking revenge, which triggers a bounty being placed on the assassin.
- Call-Forward:
- The final lines of the second trailer has Eve saying "Rules", followed by John muttering "And consequences". It references the final exchange between John and the Marquis during their duel at sunrise.
- A scene of Eve setting some Hallstatt cultists on fire is shot from overhead, making it somewhat similar to a scene of John also setting some of the Marquis' henchmen on fire with the Dragon's Breath bullets.
- Combat Pragmatist: Nogi tells her female students they need to "fight like girls" (cheat) in order to survive a fight with men, who will probably be bigger and stronger. Eve proves she's listened when she uses a Groin Attack in her next sparring session against a male trainee.
- Continuity Nod:
- John Wick still wears his watch with the face on the inside of his wrist.
- Daniel Pine has a bounty on him in the range of $2,000,000, and the cult raises it to $4,000,000 hoping it's enough to inspire a would-be assassin to take a chance violating Continental rules, and it does. This was a stated escalation in John Wick 1, where Ms. Perkins took that chance for a higher payment (considered Early-Installment Weirdness before the High Table dynamic was established as it's unlikely anyone would be stupid enough to try).
- Continuity Snarl:
- In the theatrical release of the film, Eve gets her first mission concurrently with the start of 3, as we see John's ticket getting torn as happened in that film shortly before she goes on the mission. Then there's a Time Skip of explicitly two months and the bulk of the film takes place, seeing John returns to the film in his nine-fingered state from late in 3 to 4, working a contract for the Ruska Roma. Which creates quite a conundrum timeline-wise. It cannot take place after his meeting the Elder but before the end of 3, as all the events of that film were on a tight seven-day deadline. If this is between 3 and 4, John would have been laying low recovering from all the wounds he took over the course of the very violent and eventful month that was the first three movies, implying that John recovered to full lethality in less than two months. After the start of 4, John was on the run and under no obligation to listen to the Director until he got his ticket mended. But by that point, Charon was dead and the Continental in ruins, and they're both around in the penultimate scene of this movie. Of course, John getting involved may have been because the Director was the one who raised him and he wished to repay her.
- A deleted scene actually resolves the above mentioned continuity problem from the Final Cut, explaining that the film takes place during John's journey back to New York from Casablanca in "3", between meeting the Elder and the final fight at the Continental. It turns out his passage was being provided by the Ruska Roma (so he won't need to worry about being attacked on the way), with the Director subtly threatening to revoke said safe passage if he doesn't help her. As it is never specified how long it took for John to travel between the various locations in "3" (and one can assume that traveling while staying hidden would take longer), it allows this movie to fit in the timeline. This however, creates a separate snarl, as it creates ambiguity as to when the Adjudicator arrived in New York, since the entirety of their stay unfolds over the course of just one week and its end coincides with John's return to the city. In addition, the Director also doesn't have so much as a scar on either of her hands despite this deleted scene confirming events occurring after having a sword driven through both of them by Zero.
- Contract on the Hitman:
- Daniel Pine is a fugitive from the Chancellor's cult and has a $2 million bounty on his head. When things start going south at the Continental Prague, said bounty is doubled.
- After her rampage in Hallstatt resulting in the Chancellor's death, Eve has a $5 million bounty on her head. She doesn't stay long for the ballet at the end because she spots several men getting a cellphone alert with said bounty in the seated crowd.
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: John Wick started with a local mob boss before getting involved with an N.G.O. Superpower in the High Table. This film centers on the Hallstatt Cult, which are secretive even to others under the table and only abide by their rules if it suits them.
- Contrasting Sequel Main Character: For one thing Eve is female. But her story surrounds avenging her father's death and unraveling secrets of her own past, while John Wick was an experienced hitman forced out of retirement.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Eve is protected from a flamethrower by a window which doesn't crack or blacken from the heat, and although she's wearing a fire resistant cloak her face is unprotected from several near misses.
- Covert Group with Mundane Front: Ruska Roma, an organization of assassins, operates from a Russian NYC theater where ballets are performed, the Tarkovsky Theater.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Eve vs John is quite one sided. The only times she even touches him, it is because he continuously tries to talk her down. Had he truly wanted to kill her, the movie would've been over right then and there.
- Deadly Graduation: For her final test to become a Kikimora assassin, Eve is placed at a table with two chairs, each before a stripped pistol that they have to assemble and shoot their opponent before getting shot themselves. As Eve's friend Tatiana has just been removed from training, the audience likely expects the Shoot Your Mate version. Instead, a female prisoner is dragged inside and has a You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! reaction. Turns out she's a Kikimora and has done this test before.
- Decapitated Army: Subverted. Though Eve kills the Chancellor, Winston notes that cutting the head off the snake hasn't killed the body, and they issue an even larger bounty on her than they did on Daniel.
- Distinguishing Mark: All members of the Hallstatt cult have a pair of scars forming a large X on the inside of their wrist.
- Ruska Roma are identifiable by their tattoos. Lena immediately knows Eve is one after seeing only part of her back.
- Door Fu:
- After a mook rams her car following the elimination of a target, Eve uses his own car's door in the fight against him.
- Eve grenade tags a mook and shoves him behind a steel door to protect herself from the blast. She then locks the steel door to block off the other mooks, while the explosion has conveniently blasted a hole in the wall for her to escape through.
- An unintentional version happens when Eve locks a cultist in a meat locker but she's able to break the door open, which slams into her colleague just when she's about to shoot Eve dead.
- The Dreaded: The film shows that John Wick is still feared by the underworld and rightfully so. While the Chancellor refuses to hide despite Eve getting closer to him, the moment the Eye lets him know that they lost track of John Wick, the Chancellor immediately folds. During the battle at Hallstatt, one of the mooks has the common sense of pointing out that they're up against "fucking John Wick". Said mook's comrade has much less common sense by pointing out Wick is alone. They're proven very wrong.
- Eiffel Tower Effect:
- The One World Trade Center in New York City.
- When Eve goes to Prague, there are shots of famous landmarks of the city such as the Prague Castle (seen from afar), the Old Town Hall, the Church of Our Lady before Týn and the Charles Bridge.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Unlike the male-dominated Tasarov Family or the various High Table factions, the Chancellor's Cult indoctrinates men and women alike for combat roles, and appears to be quite ethnically diverse to boot.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- No one associated with the High Table likes the Cult — from what little we're told they are fatalist, nihilistic strongmen who act on their own goals and will kill for fun. The High Table have plenty of their own infighting, but their rules keep things mostly in check. It's implied that the Director sent John to the Cult's stronghold on their behalf as a pretext for John to turn on the Cult due to their many crimes, not least of which was traumatizing one of her own.
- One of the Cult's Mooks noticeably hesitates (and requires confirmation) when the Chancellor immediately and callously gives the order to kill Lena and Eve, seemingly shocked at how quickly he would turn against a high-ranking member of his own organisation.
- Everyone Is Armed: The Austrian village of Hallstatt is actually entirely populated by hitmen of the Chancellor's cult, and they're all armed to the teeth.
- Exact Words:
- After being forced to battle the Cult assassins at the Prague Continental, Eve tells the concierge that she broke no rules because she only defended herself and killed no one. He agrees and has the surviving assassins shot, then politely suggests she check out.
- John Wick is sent to Hallstat to ensure that the dispute between Eve and the Chancellor is resolved by midnight. He does so by helping Eve kill the Chancellor before midnight, though he also states that if she hadn't finished the job by then, he'd have been obliged to kill her.
- Eye Scream: Eve fights dirty, including gouging out a Cult member's eye when he's starting to get the upper hand.
- Failure Montage: The adult Eve is introduced trying and failing to pirouette over and over in her ballet training.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Final Battle gives us a duel of flamethrowers, no less, between Eve and the Chancellor's lieutenant Dex. Then a Beam-O-War between Dex and Eve, with flamethrower vs fire hose.
- Foreshadowing:
- When first introduced to the concept of the kikimora spirits, Eve compares them to the boogeyman. She'll later run into John Wick, the one you send to kill the boogeyman.
- When giving information on Daniel Pine, the Continental takes note of the fact that he's ordered a lot of room service, most of which is ice cream. Daniel turns out to be an ex-cultist attempting to protect his young daughter from them.
- Fun with Subtitles: In (at least the Polish) theatrical subbed version, subtitle of the "May I be frank?" line in the Prague weapon store is offset so that Frank the shopkeeper's nameplate remains visible.
- Get Out!: Eve and the two surviving assassins who attempted the hit on Pine on Continental grounds are rounded up by security and held at gunpoint. Since Eve hadn't killed anyone and only acted in self-defense, she's spared from execution. However, since she was involved in a massive disruption that disturbed the peace, the desk clerk politely tells her that she'll have to check out immediately. Compared to the summary execution the other assassins got, this is pretty reasonable.
- Girls with Guns: Eve's training at Ruska Roma naturally includes firearms, and she uses several of them throughout the film.
- Groin Attack:
- Eve kicks a male trainee between the legs during her training as part of Ruska Roma.
- Eve shoots one mook in the groin with rubber bullets when doing bodyguard work for Katla Park.
- One of the Chancellor's cult mooks also gets this treatment at the restaurant in Hallstatt.
- Guns Akimbo: A practical and tactical variant, as backup arrives for Dex during her duel with him, she takes out and fires her pistol with her offhand for more precise shots and presumably conserve the fuel of her flamethrower.
- Hazmat Suit: Along with a flamethrower, Eve grabs a fireproof suit in the armory of Hallstatt and puts it on (although she doesn't cover her head, presumably because it would hamper her vision).
- Hero Antagonist: John "Baba Yaga" Wick has sort of a more antagonistic role this time around, as he's sent by the Director of the Ruska Roma to "broker peace" between Eve and the Chancellor. At the end of a bullet, if necessary. Or perhaps not. Eve keeps wanting to fight him since he stands between her and the Chancellor, and he systematically gains the upper hand over her, though he actually never wants to kill her and even snipes a mook to help her take the Chancellor down.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Baba Yaga himself is tasked by the Director to stop Eve in the final act of the film. Although Eve puts up a respectable effort, there's no attempt to frame her as having a chance against John Wick. There are multiple occasions where John has Eve dead to rights, yet he refuses to kill her because he tries convincing her to give up her revenge. Eve only walks away because she convinces John to allow her enough time to kill the Chancellor.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: Implied in Eve's showdown with John Wick. It's clear that John had multiple wide-open opportunities to kill Eve, but he doesn't.
- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: Eve's final test to be admitted to the Ruska Roma is to be sat at a table with two disassembled handguns, opposite an apparently failed member. The first one to assemble their gun and shoot the other gets to stay.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Eve brutally stabs dozens of opponents (mostly using stabs to the neck and face) through the entire movie. In addition to mundane knives, some combat axes, and a sword she uses an ice pick and a pair of ice skates*
- Impossibly Cool Weapon: Eve's 3D-printed, carbon fiber reinforced, pistol loaded with "rubber bullets" that is completely undetectable by metal detectors and almost entirely nonlethal, being even unable to penetrate clothing. In reality, carbon fiber reinforcing of barrels has not proven to produce reliable 3D-printed pistols, as carbon fiber does not handle repeated pressurization very well (this is why, for example, it shouldn't be used in submarines). Further, actual rubber bullets are fired from shotguns or grenade launchers and are steel-cored, which would set off a metal detector. Rubber bullets compatible with a 9mm pistol would either explode in the barrel (getting stuck and causing the barrel to rupture and the gun to explode in the firer's hands) or tear apart as they left the gun, turning into rubber shrapnel with basically no impact power whatsoever.
- Improvised Weapon: Eve is more than willing to fight dirty, almost anytime she finds herself fighting in close quarters, she uses any object she can grab as a weapon against her foes. One standout scene her her use an ice skate like a boxing glove while slicing up cultists.
- Interquel: The bulk of the film is set between the events of Chapters 3 and 4, with both Charon and John Wick appearing alive and well.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Two Cult mooks have a brief argument over leaving because one argues fighting John Wick is suicide — the other skeptically says he's just one guy. They are near-immediately killed by John popping out.
- Internal Homage: The scene where Eve goes shopping at a local hunting store/underworld armory plays very similarly to the scene where John goes shopping at the Sommelier's shop in the second film, complete with Frank the store owner wording his merchandises in hunting-related terms that are full of double meanings. It only goes for a while before Hallstatt cultists assault the store to kill Eve, and both she and Frank scramble to take cover and fight back.
- Keeping the Enemy Close: Eve is surprised that Winston allows the Hallstatt cult to use the services of the Continental despite decrying them as savages who don't play by the rules of the underworld. He justifies it by saying that it is better to have them in while pissing outside than out and pissing inside—in other words, they are better able to track their movements. Indeed, one phone call and Winston was able to identify one such member staying at the Prague Continental.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Eve blows the Chancellor's brains out before he can finish his monologue towards her about how his death will change nothing.
- Killerina: Eve is basically the definition and a prime archetype of this trope, as she is trained as a "Kikimora" in Ballet, assassination and bodyguarding. Her best friend fails the second two aspects of this training and is allowed to become a genuine ballerina instead.
- Kill It with Fire: In the armory of Hallstatt, Eve finds a flamethrower (and a fireproof suit) and sets several mooks ablaze with it. She even has a duel of flamethrowers with Dex, and later brings a fire hose against him, resulting in a Beam-O-War.
- Lock-and-Load Montage: The John Wick tradition of the protagonist shopping for firearms that are described in Gun Porn detail continues with Eve visiting a hunting supply store in Prague and going to a hidden room full of equipment for hunting the most dangerous game. However, the cult attacks the store halfway through the sales pitch, so she never gets to use any of the "big game" guns she was looking to purchase.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Once Eve becomes aware of the Cult's existence, which the Ruska Roma trainees are not made aware of, she is only able to access very limited information about their beliefs, activities, location, etc.; information which the likes of the Director, Winston, Nogi, and even a random Arms Dealer in Prague seem to be perfectly aware of.
- Lodged-Blade Recycling: In the restaurant fight, Eve gets stabbed in the back, yanks the knife out, and uses it to kill the person who stabbed her.
- Lodged Blade Removal: Her "two months later" scene begins with Eve pulling part of a blade tip out of the top of her shoulder. The camera pans down to show the rest of the knife, implying that it broke off in her shoulder.
- Loophole Abuse:
- The Cult and High Table assassins seeking Cult-placed bounties try their best to find a way around the Continental's strict Truce Zone policies by trying to provoke them into self-defense, wherein they're deemed to have broken the truce and become excommunicado. Failing that, they try to intimidate the bounty into leaving, where they're fair game outside of the Continental. Eve argues she acted in self-defense and did not kill anyone. The Prague Continental see right through this and have the assassins executed, and curtly tell Eve she needs to check out.
- As Eve has broken the High Table and Ruska Roma's truce with the Cult, the Cult demands the Ruska Roma kill Eve or face an all-out war. In response, the Director sends John Wick, with the implication that she knows he'll be sympathetic to her quest for revenge and turn on the Cult — after all, they need someone to deal with Eve, so they got someone who "dealt" with Eve.
- The Cult wants Wick to go into action if Eve survives past midnight, per the demands to the Director. They never specified having to kill her before midnight — and once it hits midnight, John takes action... by deliberately placing himself away from Eve's path and slaughtering the Cult.
- Lower-Deck Episode: The film can be seen as John Wick from the perspective of a regular assassin; Eve has her own agenda, but is fundamentally still an agent of the Ruska Roma, with the few scenes she shares with Wick very much placing her as the lesser of the two.
- Ludicrous Gibs: Some of the cult's mooks end up reduced to this thanks to Eve's creative use of grenades. The film's finale is signaled by Eve strapping grenades to a mook she hangs off a ledge, reducing him to paste in full view of the Chancellor's watchman.
- Made of Iron: Not just with Eve, who survives a house bombing that kills her sister Lena, but numerous mooks she fights take cuts to their necks and torsos and still require a dozen more slashes to take down.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Early in the film, Eve finds her best friend and bunkmate, Tatiana, is missing. When she angrily confronts the Director, the Director explains Tatiana wasn't cut out to be an assassin — she has too much sadness to be an effective fighter, and is best off working as a civilian ballerina.
- Mix-and-Match Weapon: At one point Eve ductapes a large kitchen knife parallel along the grip of her pistol and uses it to great effect.
- Mythical Motifs: The Ruska Roma's assassins are nicknamed Kikimora, after female spirits from Slavic Mythology.Nogi: In Slavic mythology, the Kikimora is a spirit that exists in the shadows. To those with darkness in their hearts, she can be vengeful. But to the innocent, she can be a protector. It's up to you to choose.
- Nebulous Evil Organization: It isn't stated what the Cult truly is — they espouse a nihilistic, fatalistic attitude, hunt down any defectors, kidnap children to groom into loyal fanatics, emphasise family and tradition, and generally stay out of the way of the High Table, but aside from trying to kill ex-Cult members and their relatives and brainwashing the rest, their operations regarding anyone not related to the Cult aren't known. The High Table, ranging from the Ruska Roma to the Continental, don't know what they do, and don't want to find out.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: With Daniel Pine incapacitated and the cultists gone, Eve has very few options to find the Cult's stronghold… until they attack her at Frank's arms shop, trash the place, and nearly kill them both, giving Frank all the motivation required to provide her with a map to the general area in the mountains where the Cult's stronghold is located.
- Non-Lethal Warfare: For Eve's first assignment she's given a 3D-printed pistol with polymer bullets that can pass through a metal detector. Fortunately her assignment on that occasion is to protect rather than assassinate.
- Noodle Incident: We only see the carnage of Eve's "2 months later" mission. She head-on pinned a guy against a wall with her car, got around security, and killed an entire floor of guys (many with knives that she retrieves from their bodies on the way out). No mention of why the bathroom's flooded, either.
- Nostalgic Music Box: Eve's Tragic Keepsake, the little rotating ballerina under a glass dome her late father offered her when she was a child, has a music box that plays the "Swan's Theme" from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.
- "Not So Different" Remark: When Eve and John "Baba Yaga" Wick meet for the first time, this little exchange occurs:Eve: How do I start doing what you do?
John: Looks like you already have. - Oh, Crap!:
- Several of the cult mooks share this reaction while searching for Eve in the darkened tunnels beneath the town, seeing a flame appear within the darkness and realizing they're about to get roasted by a flamethrower.
- Then there's the mook who says "It's fucking John Wick!" later when Wick intervenes to help Eve.
- Once per Episode: Once again, there's a fight scene that takes place in a nightclub. This time, it's the setting of Eve's first official mission to protect a VIP from getting abducted.
- Overly Long Gag: When Eve is ambushed in the Cult's town, she has a half-a-minute long sequence with a coffee barista consisting of slamming dishes on the top of each others' heads.
- Pinned to the Wall: In an effort to quietly infiltrate Javier and Eve's house, the Cult assassins kill the men outside with crossbows. The second one gets pinned to the stone wall by bolts through his chest, neck, and head.
- Plausible Deniability: Most people want to pretend they don't know anything about the Hallstatt Cult because that alone makes them a target, though their existence is hardly a big secret. An Arms Dealer named Frank dances around that information at first, but after being accosted by some following Eve he drops the act and gives her something more concrete.
- Powerful Pick: At the nightclub where she has to protect Katla Park from kidnappers, Eve uses an ice axe that she finds on blocks of ice brought to the nightclub to fight them.
- The Public Domain Channel: As she's pounding on one assassin with a remote control, the TV behind her flips to The Three Stooges' scene from Swing Parade of 1946 and Buster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. (and also the non-public domain Airplane!).
- Repurposed Pop Song: The trailer features a somber remix of Elton John's "Tiny Dancer".
- Resignations Not Accepted: One of the key rules of the cult is that nobody leaves it and nobody gets to declare that their kids won't join.
- Revealing Cover-Up: Without fail, the Cult will kill anyone who finds the location of their secret stronghold before they are able to tell anybody else. This makes it blindingly obvious that it's located in the small region in the Alps where everyone who has gone searching for the Cult's stronghold has vanished into thin air. It only takes the right motivation for Frank the Arms Dealer to tell Eve the general location to within a few dozen kilometers.
- Revenge: Eve's drive is revenge for the death of her father. This is what makes John Wick pull his punches and eventually causes him help Eve — he's fresh out of being screwed by his former boss and hunted by the High Table.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Eve's quest for revenge for the death of her father leaves quite a body count and destroyed places in her wake, to say the least.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Upon being suggested to evacuate from Hallstatt and away from Eve's Roaring Rampage of Revenge that is tearing through everything and everyone in the town, the Chancellor stubbornly refuses and states that the leadership of the town hasn't gone anywhere for 200 years and so will he... then he decides to pack up and hightail it out of there the moment he hears that John Wick is on the loose too.
- Seeking Sanctuary: This film adds a new twist to the rules of the Continentals. Namely, there's nothing in the rules forbidding a Continental from letting everyone know that someone with a standing bounty on their head is staying there, and while they'll object lethally to anyone going in after them, nothing prevents killers from placing their target under a genteel siege by making it impossible for them to safely leave.
- Sequel Hook: Eve has a $5,000,000 bounty put on her head, presumably by the surviving members of the Cult. $4,000,000 was previously shown to be enough to make assassins consider breaking Continental rules.
- Serendipitous Survival: The fact that Eve goes into Daniel Pine's room through the window spares her from getting shot by the gun mounted to the door.
- Shoot the Fuel Tank: John Wick takes out Dex in this fashion by shooting the flamethrower canister and causing it to explode, saving Eve from getting burnt to a crisp.
- Shout-Out:
- Several to identically-named Korean action movie Ballerina 2023: Eve is trained to become a bodyguard for VIPs like the titular character, goes on an unsanctioned Roaring Rampage of Revenge against a mysterious criminal organisation that killed someone close to her, and appropriates a flamethrower from the criminals.
- There's an Overly Long Gag of Eve and a Cult member continually breaking dishes over the others' head, in the vein of The Three Stooges, old Buster Keaton flicks (which is a huge source of inspiration for the John Wick series), and other old-timey slapstick acts like Abbott and Costello.
- Eve picks up a katana that she puts to good use in her Roaring Rampage of Revenge after being captured and having another loved one die, referencing both Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill.
- Shown Their Work: When the cult interrupts Eve's meeting with Frank, she is unable to find a gun with ammo. Why? Simple gun safety: you never store loaded weapons.
- Slapstick: During the initial ambush on Eve in the Cult's town, Eve winds up having a cartoon-worthy 'fight' with the coffee barista wherein they slam dishes over each others' heads for nearly half a minute.
- Standard Snippet: Unsurprisingly, the combination of the ballet theming and Eve entering a Russian hitmen circle (doubling as a ballet school) could only lead to the film using the Swan Lake leitmotif by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (in Eve's rotating ballerina/music box, specifically).
- Summon Bigger Fish: As the Cult members haven't be able to stop Eve's Roaring Rampage of Revenge on them in Hallstatt, the Chancellor calls the Director of Ruska Roma. He demands that she deal with Eve or he'll declare war on the Ruska Roma. The Director then sends John Wick to Hallstatt deal with her.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Eve goes to an Arms Dealer named Frank for a Lock-and-Load Montage, and while he is doing the Once A Movie breakdown of the weaponry on offer, members of the Cult break through and attack them. In another action film, you would expect our heroes to use the Wall of Weapons that surrounds them to fight back. Not this time, as no credible gun store is going to keep their guns unsecured and next to fully loaded magazines. After being stuck firing back with their personal firearms, Eve rummages through the back rooms trying to find anything she could use, and ends up using the only weapons available that don't require ammunition: grenades.
- Team Switzerland: The Cult seems to be this. They're a violent criminal organization that exists outside of The High Table and their operations, and are looked upon by tribes under the Table with suspicion and/or apathy. That said, they have a long-standing, Cold War-esq agreement with the Ruska Roma, and their members are allowed to stay at the Continental Hotels under close observation.
- Tempting Fate: When John Wick inevitably turns on the cult, one rightfully scared mook tells his partner they should get out of dodge — it's John Wick they're dealing with. His partner brushes him off by saying it's just one guy. Almost immediately, John appears and kills them both.
- Theme Naming: In keeping with the Ruska Roma assassins being named after Russian mythological figures, Eve is given the nickname 'Kikimora'.
- The Worf Effect: Entirely Subverted with John 'Baba Yaga' Wick vs Eve. Eve is seemingly set up through the film onto a collision course that would need her to defeat the yardstick legend himself, somehow, to accomplish her goals. But when they finally fight, it is instead played entirely straight that she is utterly out of her class and lives only because John — repeatedly — chooses not to kill her.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Hallstatt's is that every adult is a member of the cult, and the kids are all in various stages of indoctrination.
- Tragic Keepsake: Eve has kept the little rotating ballerina under a glass dome with a music box tune her late father offered her as a child. It plays the famous "Swan's Theme" from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. She quickly realizes she's on the right track in Hallstatt when she finds a store selling more of the same type.
- Training Montage: Naturally, we see Eve go from raw recruit to hardened assassin, gradually getting better in stealth and combat.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: One of the first signs something's up with Hallstatt is when Eve stops her car to let a woman and boy cross the street and the boy, rather than sticking out his tongue or something, mimes shooting her.
- Underestimating Badassery: During the Final Battle in Hallstatt, there's a mook who says John Wick is alone, thinking this will help taking him down. It doesn't.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: John offers Eve until midnight to finish her revenge against the cultists before he will have to kill her. When he makes the offer, it is less than 40 minutes away.
- Winter Warfare: The Final Battle occurs in the snow-covered Austrian town of Hallstatt and involves military-grade weaponry.
- Yodel Land: Hallstatt is your typical tourist-y Alpine village... if it weren't for the fact that Everyone Is Armed and belongs to the Chancellor's cult.
- You Can't Fight Fate: The Chancellor's dying words are a rant about this and how everyone in Hallstatt is destined to be a killer, all Eve's actions accomplish is to change the path people take to get there. Then she shoots him in the face.
- You Have Failed Me:
- Eve's Deadly Graduation involves shooting another Kikimora who's dragged in as a prisoner. It's not mentioned what her offense was or what would have happened to her if she'd killed Eve instead.
- When Eve refuses to back off from her Roaring Rampage of Revenge, the Director sends John Wick after her. He decides not to kill her in the end, but Eve still ends up on the run with a contract on her life.
- You Killed My Father: This is Eve's exact motivation for revenge. The Chancellor is responsible for the death of her father and she's dead set on eliminating him.
Eve: Rules.
John: And consequences.
John: And consequences.