Ballerina

In the reflection of a dirty mirror, the years flew by. Eva endured beatings and failures while mastering the delicate art of death, taking on and successfully completing her first contracts. The new life turned out not to be as bad as it might have seemed, yet one obsessive thought gave her no peace. Just a single word, a pale flame in the dark well of her subconscious — revenge.

Over time, Eva’s desire for revenge grew distorted, for her father had been her entire world. Now it was not enough to destroy the cult itself — the urge to shatter the world of its leader, the one he had built all his life, became irresistible. This fiery drive elevated a simple girl into a mythical figure, whose phantasmagoric aura resembles another legend from the world of assassins — John Wick.

John had not only staged a blood-soaked feast, but also transformed the very genre of films about himself — from a pulp action flick into an epic of feats worthy of Greek mythology. The ordinary rules became too narrow for him, and he embarked on a convoluted odyssey, inventing along the way the stratagems by which his universe now operates.

What binds John and Eva is not only their place in mythology, but also an inhuman thirst to achieve their set goal and a childhood spent in the Ruska Roma clan. Yet their approach to how they carry out their work differs greatly. And it is precisely this small but fundamental divergence that reshapes the construction of the fight scenes.

Contrary to the legends of pencil killings, John relies on refined and complex movements. Every battle turns into a dance of death with precise rhythm, even in the tensest moments when there’s no time to analyze the situation. It is this orderly and methodical approach that made him a legend.

But fights involving Eva generate pure chaos. For her, no clear structures exist — she uses the environment, improvises weapons on the spot, and doesn’t fear appearing ridiculous or breaking the rhythm. The heroine’s movements exist apart from John Wick’s legacy and feel alien both to the series as a whole and to its spin-off.

Against Eva, the length and structure of the scenes rebel. The brawls in “Ballerina” don’t end in due time; instead, they either drag on too long or, on the contrary, cut off mid-sentence. Even the heroine’s trip to a gun shop turns into a surreal brawl in which she doesn’t use firearms at all.

Eva’s obsession with revenge shapes a simple rule — no theatrics, only results by any means necessary. Her deliberate cruelty and drive to inflict grievous injuries on her opponents stand in stark contrast to the pragmatic John, who is captivated by movement, elegance, and intricate pirouettes.

Because of this, the film about Eva carries two additional flavors — comic and terrifying. Scenes of brutal retribution may entertain, frighten, or sometimes amuse, either all at once or in succession. For the most part, Eva doesn’t care what the viewer feels in a given moment — she heads toward her goal without worrying whether her hairdo has survived.

Ballerina, in its attempt to fuse barely compatible elements, becomes a genuine teenage rebellion from a genre director. The original John Wick was exactly such a rebellion too — but then it was staged by stuntmen who had grown tired of injuries in the name of someone else’s vision.

Despite the film about Eva being titled “Ballerina”, it is John who fits such a name more. The avenging girl is portrayed as an untamed fusion of elements — literally fire, ice, and gunpowder smoke. She dances on bones and severed limbs of all who stand in her way, glides through pools of blood, and waltzes in ragged rhythm among charred flesh.

Elements of playful body horror bring notes of estrangement into the established series. It is not only John who can rewrite the elements of the universe and the genre for himself, but Eva as well. She does it more crudely and with almost no reverence, yet at the same time far more strikingly — as if hammering nails into someone else’s world with her bare fist.