Christian Bale’s Equilibrium made a bold attempt to introduce a new form of cinematic gunplay, years before John Wick got there. After Bale’s star-making turn in American Psycho, he spent a few years in the wilderness trying to figure out his screen persona. This resulted in movies like Reign of Fire, Shaft and his 2002 flop Equilibrium.

Critically derided for pulling from classic sci-fi like Fahrenheit 451 and The Matrix movies, the movie cast Bale as a police officer in a dystopian future where feelings are illegal. The population’s feelings are kept in check with a a drug, but after Bale’s Preston misses a dose, the feelings he experiences inspire him to revolt.

Equilibrium can be extremely cheesy and over the top, but it boasts a great cast (including Sean Bean, Emily Watson and William Fichtner) and slick action. That didn’t help this Christian Bale movie at the box office, though; Equilibrium grossed just over $5 million on a $20 million budget (via The Numbers) and boasts 40% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Bale eventually figured out his movie stardom with movies like The Machinist and The Dark Knight movies, though Equilibrium still developed a cult following. That’s because it has some very unique action sequences, thanks to the “Gun Kata” technique employed by Bale’s Preston.

Christian Bale’s Equilibrium Introduced “Gun Kata” To Audiences

Math + Guns equals big screen excitement!

In the same way The Matrix sold itself on “bullet time” effects used in certain sequences, Equilibrium had gun kata. This is a mixture of gunplay and martial arts, and is said to be a technique developed from analyzing thousands of gunfights that makes users of gun kata unstoppable killing machines. The villain DuPont (Angus Macfadyen) explains it thus:

Through analysis of thousands of recorded gunfights, the Cleric has determined that the geometric distribution of antagonists in any gun battle is a statistically predictable element. The gun kata treats the gun as a total weapon, each fluid position representing a maximum kill zone, inflicting maximum damage on the maximum number of opponents, while keeping the defender clear of the statistically traditional trajectories of return fire. By the rote mastery of this art, your firing efficiency will rise by no less than 120 percent.

While that sounds confusing, gun kata translates to a very cool fighting style where Bale’s Preston glides around with two guns taking down foes. Whatever its faults, from illogical plotting to bumping up against its modest budget, Equilibrium still boasts some incredibly inventive and stylish action because of gun kata.

This enables Preston to tear through dozens of enemies with practiced ease, while director Kurt Wimmer films these scenes for maximum impact. He gets inventive with the choreography too, including a pistol-whipping fight that displays Preston’s skills up close.

The final shootout with a hallway full of armed guards is the action standout – even if the editing muddles the geography. It should be said that Bale gives Equilibrium genuine emotional heft too, elevating it above a DTV actioner that Steven Seagal may have fronted during this time. Even so, gun kata is the reason the film is remembered now.

After Equilibrium Bombed, Gun Kata Was Reused For Milla Jovovich’s Ultraviolet

Ultraviolet featured a new take on gun kata

Wimmer didn’t let Equilibrium’s box office performance dampen his enthusiasm for gun kata, and he brought it forward to his next movie. Ultraviolet is a Milla Jovovich actioner that casts her as a vampire trying to protect a young boy in another dystopian future.

Wimmer wasn’t entirely happy with how his gun kata concept was executed in Equilibrium, with Ultraviolet’s take being more balletic and fluid. The whole movie feels like a live-action anime anyway, so its more heightened take on gun kata is understandable, but fun as Jovovich is in the lead, it can’t mask that the movie is a real mess.

Its overreliance on green screen and CG makes it an eyesore, and its action feels oddly weightless at times. While Ultraviolet is said to have turned a profit on DVD, it just about grossed its production budget of $30 million back (via The Numbers) and stands at an abysmal 9% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Ultraviolet placed Wimmer in the director’s jail for 15 years, which he finally broke out of with 2020’s Children of the Corn reboot. Needless to say, Ultraviolet’s performance killed off any chance of gun kata catching on in other action movies either, and the concept has yet to reappear in another movie.

Gun Kata Could Have Redefined Onscreen Action Years Before John Wick’s Gun Fu

John Wick set a trend that is still ongoing

The original John Wick was a modestly budgeted revenge thriller starring a leading man coming off back-to-back duds. Nobody expected it to revolutionize the genre, but its great cast, unique worldbuilding and incredible setpieces did just that. John Wick also presented a new way of filming gun battles onscreen.

Utilizing Keanu Reeves’ own martial arts skills and long takes, audiences bore witness to Wick laying waste to dozens of henchmen with pistols, sH๏τguns and ᴀssault rifles. Co-directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch originally developed Wick’s action style for Safe, a 2012 Jason Statham vehicle.

It was decided that gun fu didn’t fit that movie, but it was dusted off for the John Wick movies and set a new standard for action movies moving forward. The key thing was that it felt fresh and offered audiences something they hadn’t seen before. Equilibrium’s gun kata tried that same, but audiences weren’t buying into it in 2002.

Had the movie been a bigger hit, I wonder if other action movies would have adopted the same style. In the aftermath of John Wick, there was a wave of movies like Atomic Blonde, Kate and Extraction that borrowed from its playbook. Who knows, maybe Equilibrium could have sparked a similar movement to the Wick saga.

Fans of cult action or Christian Bale owe it to themselves to give Equilibrium a watch. It’s one of the most undersung action movies of the 2000s, and has that rarest of things: a totally distinct action style.

Source: The Numbers, Rotten Tomatoes, The Numbers, Rotten Tomatoes