When "John Wick" blasted into theaters on October 24, 2014, moviegoers lost their minds over the film's inventive amalgam of hand-to-hand combat and gunplay. It was doubly impressive due to Keanu Reeves' seemingly effortless facility for performing many of his own stunts. Obviously, no one was surprised that the star of "The Matrix" franchise could brawl and shoot convincingly, but the degree of difficulty appeared to be off the charts. Just when you think you've seen every possible iteration of martial arts combat on screen, along comes stuntman-turned-director Chad Stahelski to show action junkies that there's still plenty of room for throwdown innovation.

If you're a hardcore fan of the genre, you know that filmmakers have blended these gunplay and hand-to-hand combat before. The Wachowskis first introduced the idea in "The Matrix," which inspired Kurt Wimmer to go utterly gonzo by inventing "gun kata" in his ludicrously entertaining "Equilibrium." Wimmer was so...