Movies like “Demon City” are why we pay extra attention to that one credit in an action picture’s production — “action choreographer” or “stunt coordinator.”

More that one actor I’ve interviewed over the years has mentioned he or she took on a picture because of who they had choreographing the fights to make them look “cool.” Jason Statham was the first I heard mention it. He took on “The Transporter” because Jianyong Guo was the hot stunt coordinator of the moment.

And somebody had to invent and stage that barefoot brawl where our hero snaps the toe-clip pedals off a racing bike, spills a barrel of motor oil all over a garage, and kicks ass while bad guys slip and tumble around him.

Takashi Tanimoto was stunt coordinator for the martial arts thriller “47 Ronin.” But what he does with Tôma Ikuta (“The Fallen Angel”) in this martial arts massacre is a wonder to behold, a next-level, “We’ve never seen THAT before” dance of violence and death-dealing.

“Demon City” is a Japanese “John Wick,” where our mysterious, seemingly unkillable “baba yaga” is a demonic hitman out for “Oldboy” styled revenge. The classic car is different — he drives a vintage Mach One Mustange — and there’s no dead beagle. But the story arc is the same and the mayhem just as spectacular.

Sanaka (Ikuta) finishes one last bit of mass slaughter in Shinjo City before retirement, hacking and kicking has way through legions of villains, in essence clearing out “the docks” for a new gang to move in.

Sanaka relies on his balance, his martial arts skills and his vast collection of knives, hatchets, machetes and what not, which he sharpens with care.

His middle-man (Tarô Suruga) has arranged this “job,” and for Sanaka’s comfy retirement with his wife and little girl. But that is not to be. Masked marauders have preceded him home and have his wife and daughter Ryo hostage. The Master in this killing cult of mobsters speaks of a “demon” who arises in their “demon city” every so often, and that’s who he figures Sanaka is.

The gangsters who hired him to clear the way for their rule over the city’s underworld cannot have such a “demon” amongst them. They kill his wife and child, and finish Sanaka off.

Ah, but “Demon City” is based on a manga. And you know how “death” works in comic books. Sanaka isn’t dead, merely reduced to a scarred, catatonic “vegetable.”

But twelve years later, when he is released from a prison hospital — speechless, blank-eyed, drooling in a wheelchair — dirty cops show up to finish the job. And Sanaka wills himself to his feet, and fights as he crawls. Because revenge is the great motivator in this narrative. And Sanaka has a lot of masked murderers to track down and hack, kick, choke or shoot to death.

Coordinator Tanimoto has Ikuta, with some digital assitance (sped-up movement, etc.), lurch and jerk about, using upper body strenght and balance to flip guys out of windows even as he struggles to move under his own power.

Even before his beat-down and hospitalization Sanaka is a fighter with moves that suggest every joint in his body is double-jointed. Every blow that lands sets up the next, every minion he faces provides the momentum for crashing into the next one.

Watch the way Sanaka slams one uniformed goon against a rough concrete wall and DRAGs the poor, underpaid punk’s face along that wall, leaving a bloody red streak in his wake. Note what he does to disrupt a drug lab/human trafficking/”recycling” warehouse business. Mere forklifts are no match for his moves.

The first big fight/ambush is in the prologue, an assault on a mobster’s Morocan style-beachside lair, a white house/fortress painted crimson, one slash and splatter at a time.

Sanaka has a mission, a threat to make good on. “I’ll kill ALL of you,” he vows, in Japanese or dubbed into English. Lunging, zombie-jerking about, kicking and flailing, is he still quick enough to fend off bullets with his machete blade?

Will a bow and arrow accomplish what firearms cannot?

You’ll want to watch this with subtitles, because their is no substitute for butch yakuza bellowing in a brawl, bad guy after guy shouting “SANAKA!” as if their physical rage alone isn’t enough.

The story is formulaic — yes, “John Wick” also hewed to a formula grounded in Japanese and Hollywood revenge fantasies. There are dirty cops and a “good” cop helper, twists aplenty because every time you’re sure that was a mortal wound, somebody comes back from the dead, back for more.

But the fights in this bad-boy-amongst-bad-boys butcher shop thriller have to be seen to be believed. “The Raid,” assorted blind swordsman tales, “Oldboy” and John Wickworld all are glimpsed in this slaughter in scarlet saga from Seiji Tanaka.

Some day, some generous minded filmmaker is going to give a Takashi Tanimoto a curtain call credit for a movie like this. Whatever else goes on behind the camera, he’s the one who makes this one and its anti-hero look cool.

Rating: TV-MA, graphic bloody violence, profanity and perversion

Cast: Tôma Ikuta, Tarô Suruga, Matsuya Onoe, Miou Takata,
Masahiro Higashide and Ami Tôma

Credits: Scripted and directed by Seiji Tanaka, based on a manga by Masamichi Kawabe.A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:41