The Sam Raimi-produced dystopian action thriller Boy Kills World is set to unleash pure mayhem at the Toronto International Film Festival on Saturday, September 9. Bloody Disgusting has been provided exclusive behind-the-scenes images that tease the adrenaline-fueled mayhem ahead of its world premiere.

Boy Kills World stars Bill Skarsgård in the title role, the deaf and mute Boy, who embarks on a relentless quest for revenge. Boy’s vengeance is aided by a mentor in the form of a strange shaman, played by The Raid and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum’s Yayan Ruhian. Judging by these behind-the-scenes images from Moritz Mohr’s feature debut, Boy and his Mentor are sure to rack up quite an impressive body count.

To get a better idea of what to expect, Bloody Disgusting spoke with stunt extraordinaire, second unit director, fight coordinator, and action designer Dawid Szatarski (Wonder Woman, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Ong Bak 3) about the film.

Szatarski spent months prepping and training actors for the intense action sequences, making sure Boy Kills World stood apart from other revenge actioners, including the popular John Wick franchise. For Szatarski, it’s all about the body shape and movement when creating choreography.

Photo credit: Julian Leshay

He explains, “Training Bill [Skarsgård], I didn’t want to make another John Wick, even though I really respect John Wick and I always enjoy the movies, but it’s always about the shape. When you think about when Ong Bak came out back in the day, it was something so new because the shape was so different in front of the camera, and the same goes for John Wick. It was something different. Holding the gun in a specific way and having all of this kung fu close-quarter combat and all of the judo throws. I don’t know how many times John Wick is throwing people, but I said, even though it’s so cool, I don’t want Bill to throw a single person. 

“And Bill has a very unique physique. He has very long arms and very long limbs, so I tried to find something that merged with Yayan’s style but looked different for him. For me, it was like, okay, I have such a unique character actor. He’s not just an amazing actor, but he’s also an amazing character actor. Let’s find some very cool new, different physical shapes for him, and I think he really pulled it off. Even just the knife training we did with him, I was surprised. He had his personal trainer down there in South Africa, and then he was asking, ‘Let’s get some training in.’ So even when he was at home, he was practicing. I couldn’t ask for more. It was such a blast and a beautiful time.”

Photo credit: Julian Leshay

Choreographing and designing the action starts with the performer’s body type, but it’s only part of the vital equation Szatarski shares. The other crucial component is the camerawork; and Szatarski pushed boundaries there, too.

“I think the biggest mistake I could do is looking at fighting styles, because I think me being as a choreographer, it’s like you always need to have access to the soup,” Szatarski explains. “And the soup is a fusion soup. It has all martial arts styles inside. Having said that, Pencak silat in the nation’s martial arts background, where Yayan comes from, is actually a Sumatran martial art, Minangkabau Harimau; they fight with soft cloth, they fight with weapons, they have ground fighting. It’s already so good for choreography, what we have seen in The Raid films, right?

“I always look at the person’s body shape first, and then I think, ‘Oh, this martial art would be great. This martial art would be great.’ The acting that comes together with the body movements. Because at the end of the day, you ask an audience, ‘Do you like the fight scenes?’ And they will not remember that he did the jab cross, upper hook, the trip. No. They’ll remember the emotional aspect and the expressions and maybe how they fell down the stairs. That’s what they will remember. But the geeks, they will see these details. So, that’s why the camera work was very important for me and the acting inside the movements, because I believe telling a story through vocalization is quite easy, but telling a story through movements is the best way to tell a story, to be honest. The movements are not just going for facial expressions or body patterns, body movements, or body postures; it’s also the movement of the camera, right? The camera is also a storyteller.”

Photo credit: Julian Leshay

That resulted in Szatarski playing with the camera to highlight the film’s action.

He tells us, “We are the first right now who had the FPV drones inside fight sequences because, in Hollywood films, we always see the FPV drones in car chasers, but I think for the first time we have very complicated gimbal work and drone work inside fight sequences that merge in a very great balance. That’s one of the cool things we have on Boy Kills World because I wanted to approach a style that’s very organic. With organic, I mean realistic, but that we still have very stylized animated shots inside Boy Kills World, which requires a lot of camera knowledge and a lot of dynamic movements with the camera.”

Photo credit: Julian Leshay

Szatarski also gives us a tease of what we can expect from supporting player Jessica Rothe.

“Just taking John Wick as an example, what they did now on John Wick was super unique because they introduced new characters. It became less about John Wick. We all love Baba Yaga, we all love Keanu Reeves, but I think what is interesting now is all the new characters. We have June 27, which is played by Jessica Rothe, right? And having more of a female aggressive Mike Tyson kind of fighting approach character with tomahawks and all of that stuff, which is a great balance to this style that Yayan has and great balance to the style that Bill has. I think it’s the characters. It’s a crazy world.”

Producer Simon Swart chimes in with effusive praise for Szatarski’s work on Boy Kills World, including a crowd-pleasing cameo for audiences to spot.

Simon teases, “Dawid has a fantastic cameo in one of the most beloved scenes in the movie in all of our testing, fairly early on in the movie. Dawid has a great cameo as one of the guards that just won’t go down. We’ll leave it at that, because most of the time, it’s Shaman and Bill fighting the guards and taking them all down together. But Dawid actually has a great cameo, which is just a nod to some of the other [Jesse] Cilio movies, but the action in it is stunning. It’s still a stunning action sequence, and it leaves everyone just laughing out loud. It has the humor, it has the heart.”

Stay tuned for more on Boy Kills World and TIFF.

Szatarski behind the scenes with Skarsgård and Ruhian. Photo credit: Julian Leshay