The original John Wick movie was such a trendsetter for kinetic action movies, it’s hard to believe it came out 12 years ago! Alongside ‘realistic’ gunplay without infinite ammunition, it also featured a theft-worthy ride in the form of a '69 Ford Mustang Mach 1, and a monumental piece of lore straight out of the mouth of the assassin’s former boss Viggo: “I once saw him kill three men in a bar… with a f@#king PENCIL!” This probably counts for me as one of the most memorable pieces of action dialog, right next to Liam Neeson’s “What I have is a particular set of skills” declaration in TAKEN.
I think what made the pencil story so memorable was that we were not shown the deed, but were instead left to our imaginations as we took in the hoarse, grief stricken words of Viggo to his doomed no-good son. It was only in 2017’s sequel John Wick 2 that we got to see John use a yellow wooden pencil (some say it is a Ticonderoga #2) as a deadly object in a train station sequence, proof that Viggo wasn’t exaggerating in the first film.
In the spirit of this series, I think the OHTO WN01 is about as close as it gets for a wooden mechanical pencil; it even has a metal ferrule and a pink eraser! Is there a better match up that you know of?