FILM · 2015 · RUSSIA
Hardcore Henry
28 archived facts 5 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
28 Interesting Facts About Hardcore Henry
Interesting Facts (22)
- #001
Akan's claim that 100,000 baseball bats are sold in Russia for every 50 baseballs is in fact true, but the figures that appear are closer to 500,000:1.
- #002
The scene in which Henry finds a horse and tries to ride it was originally planned to have Henry take it outside, only for the horse to be attacked by rabid dogs and Henry to be forced to euthanize it; this was changed because Western audiences were unlikely to find it entertaining.
- #003
About three years before this film's marketing began, a crew member posted a 40-second clip of an action scene to 4chan's /b/ boards. The sequence looked convincingly like helmet-camera footage from a soldier in combat and was blended in with other war clips on the board.
- #004
The film lays the groundwork for a potential sequel during its closing credits. As the conversation continues, a beep is heard from an answering machine and a message arrives. The message is from Jimmy: "Hello, Henry. Well, if you're hearing this, there's one more thing you need to do." As of 2025, no official announcement has been made about a sequel. Naishuller himself considers it unlikely.
- #005
The film's tone was initially planned to be much more serious, but since the concept of a 90-minute first-person action film already asked a lot of audiences, it was decided to go with a far more offbeat and humorous tone.
- #006
The video game Payday 2 (2013) had a cross-promotion ahead of the film's release. It arrived with heists related to the film's plot as well as a new playable character (Jimmy) and new weapons. A poster for the film can be seen on the wall of one of the apartments where Slick Dimitri is found, and Jimmy's mask from the film can be seen in the drawer with the weapons in the strip club.
- #007
One of the ideas for Henry was that about two-thirds of the way through the film he would learn from Jimmy that Estelle was evil. Henry would then angrily take off his wedding ring and throw it off the balcony. Ilya decided not to include this in the film, but in terms of the shot, Henry can be seen on the balcony without a wedding ring. Ilya joked that someone would point this out and add it to trivia, causing him to supposedly shoot himself in the foot.
- #008
The three Akan mercenaries who enter the laboratory at the beginning of the film were played by real Russian SWAT personnel, because Ilya Naishuller wanted the mercenaries to look convincing the first time the audience saw them.
- #009
There are actually two instances in which viewers can see Henry's face. The first is the Slick Dimitri scene (the actor playing Slick Dimitri is in fact one of the actors who plays Henry), and the second is at the end, just before Henry's father speaks to him (the face reflected in the glass is Henry's). This was confirmed because after his father's speech, Henry can be seen smiling slightly before fighting Akan.
- #010
Asked which stunts were the hardest to shoot, Sharlto Copley described a man being elbowed out of a moving vehicle while driving, and director Ilya Naishuller described the escalator scene. It was the last scene shot, during reshoots in the final stage of production, after Naishuller decided the shoot was too boring and needed "something extra."
- #011
One of the film posters in the movie is The Lady in the Lake (1946), the first feature film shot entirely from a first-person point of view. It is generally considered a flop.
- #012
The ringtone of the cell phone given to Henry is "I've Got You Under My Skin." It is the same song to which Jimmy later performs a surreal dance routine in his laboratory.
- #013
The film's concept came from the music videos "Bad Motherfucker" and "The Stampede," which director Ilya Naishuller made with producer Sergey Valyaev for his band Biting Elbows and which were also shot with a GoPro in first-person point of view.
- #014
WILHELM SCREAM: At 1:08:05, during the fight in Jimmy's laboratory, when Henry throws a grenade at one of Akan's soldiers.
- #015
During the hotel siege, Sniper Jimmy tells Henry that he counted "six vans, which means at least 36" and that they need to cut that in half before entering the hotel. When we count every shot by Punk Jimmy and the deaths shown on screen, the number of soldiers killed is 18, exactly half of 36.
- #016
It is easy to overlook Henry's first set of clothes, but despite the dirt and grime it is clearly a white jumpsuit, a harbinger of the ending, and it turns out that this is the standard outfit for the rest of Akan's cyborg army.
- #017
The painfully shy, awkward nerd Jimmy wears the same outfit as Wiku van der Merwe, Sharlto's first lead role in District 9.
- #018
While escaping the laboratory, Henry sees Estelle's failed experiments, frozen human corpses, and wonders why she kept them. All the failed cyborgs are missing their left leg, which probably means Henry's memories were to be uploaded into them. Their first memories would be of their "wives" fucking them with a new leg and telling them she loves them.
- #019
In the video in which Jimmy shows Henry Akan's first attempt at cyborg soldiers, he mentions that the almost completely lobotomized cyborgs might have a possible problem with "emotional motivation"; Akan solves this problem by using Henry's recorded "saving his wife" experiences.
- #020
During the laboratory fight scene, "Sarge" is seen firing his PPsh-41 at a certain angle; real soldiers do this because the bolt is straight, which can cause hot brass to fly toward the user and fall inside their clothes.
- #021
Akan says he adorned Estelle and kept her captive in a van. He did, but for most of the film she uses the same black-with-red palette that Akan wears; even in the opening scene she wears black high heels in the laboratory, foreshadowing that she is not really the scientist she claims to be and giving her a visual link to Akan.
- #022
The rooftop in the film's finale was designed to be almost identical to the hospital rooftop in Left 4 Dead (2008).
Production Story (1)
- #023
Crowdfunding was used during post-production to obtain additional funds.
Behind the Scenes (3)
- #024
The scene in which Henry slides down an escalator and violently knocks a woman to the ground was not planned. An extra was standing in the wrong place. She was a stunt performer, so she knew how to fall. After the take, she reportedly came forward and asked whether they had been vaccinated.
- #025
Henry was portrayed by ten different stunt performers and camera operators, among them director Ilya Naishuller. He was initially portrayed by Russian stunt performer and camera operator Sergey Valyaev, but the camera rig eventually caused severe neck pain. The next performer to take the role, Andrei Dementiev, also suffered neck pain and lost a tooth when a stunt performer collided with him. When Danila Kozlovskiy and Sharlto Copley spoke directly to Henry, Valyaev and Dementiev wore sun visors to keep the actors from looking at them instead of the camera.
- #026
It was shot with GoPro Hero 3 cameras designed by Sergey Valyaev, who called it the "Adventure Mask", and mounted on stabilization systems using electronics or magnets created by cinematographer Vsevolod Kaptur. Between the electronic and magnet stabilization systems, Ilya Naishuller chose the magnets because he felt they most closely resembled natural head movement.
Deeper Meaning (1)
- #027
The chess pieces represent the characters' roles and positions in the scene. Placing Estelle as the black queen, Akan as the black king and Henry as the white pawn foreshadows that he will be played by Estelle and Akan.
Life & Family (1)
- #028
Although the film does not explain how Akan acquired his telekinetic powers, it has a comedic backstory: STX Entertainment's late 2016 fan release, hardcore Akan. Essentially, Akan was born as the child of a woman who fled Ukraine's Pripyat on the morning of the Chernobyl reactor meltdown. The radiation burned the melanin from his skin, eyes and hair, which is why he is an albino. After the woman died from a poisonous anti-radiation pill given to her as a cover-up, a scientist stopped and saved him to raise as his own child. Fast-forward to Akan's university years, and his powers emerge, either from the radiation itself or from the experimental treatments his stepfather used to save him from cancer. Upon learning the truth from his stepfather, Akan kills him with a ceiling fan, massacres his father's company board and takes control.
Sources & editorial notes
Reference databases
- IMDb
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