A Brief Note on John Wick

The actual Russian dialog in the John Wick movies is, uh... not great? But, the fact that John Wick is diegetically fluent in Russian ends up kicking off the plot of the first movie, when Russian gangster Iosef tries to buy John's car. Iosef asks how much, John says it ain't for sale, then, from  the script:

                                              IOSEF
                         (in Russian, subtitled)
                     Everything's got a f[*****]g price.
                         
                                              JOHN
                         (in Russian, subtitled)
                     Maybe so... but I don't.

          Taken aback by John's fluency, he watches as John enters the
          vehicle, guns the engine, and drives off.

(Censored for sensitive eyes.)

However, that's not actually how it was filmed! The Russian dialog for that scene in the movie is as follows (or at least, my interpretation of it; the pronunciations are bad):

                                              IOSEF
                     У всего, сука, своя цена.
                         
                                              JOHN
                     А у этой суки нету.

This is closed-captioned as

                                              IOSEF
                     Everything's got a price, b[***]h.
                         
                                              JOHN
                     Not this b[***]h.

Which is not word-for-word, but essentially accurate. Given that Iosef did not expect John to understand him, we have to assume that his switch into Russian was expressing frustration to himself, even though it contains a vocative, clearly addressing the sentiment to John. Possibly, he was going to switch back into English to attempt another pitch, after reminding himself that everything has a price. And if that's what had happened, then this insertion of Russian dialog would've been just a bit of implicit character exposition, with a bit of an Easter Egg for a Russophone audience. But John responding at all suddenly changes the dynamic. That's also an implicit character exposition moment--we learn that John, despite being American, speaks Russian for some reason, which is further explicated later on. But in the scene, Iosef realizes that John must have understood him, and knows that Iosef was insulting him!  That turns the outcome of the interaction into a face-threatening issue. Now, in addition to still wanting the car which John has denied him, Iosef has to back up the implied threat of his insult to save face.

The change in dialog from the script also adds a layer of double meaning, because John has his (female) dog with him in the car. Thus, Iosef could be interpreted as insulting the dog (which--spoiler alert--he later kills), which John has a strong emotional attachment to. (It turns out the Russian word for "female dog" has exactly the same insulting double-meaning that it does in English!) Out of context, John's reply could even be interpreted as claiming that his dog is not for sale, as opposed to his car--and both interpretations are true! The same cannot be said about Iosef's statement, but the oblique association is a nice addition to the scene as filmed.

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