Into The Badlands

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[#WonderCon] What We Learned About ‘Into the Badlands’ Season 3
Posted by Mary Anne Butler March 27, 2018

[Editor’s Note: This Into the Badlands piece from WonderCon comes to us from Bleeding Cool contributor Dana Han-Klein.]

Based on the trailer for the third season of AMC’s Into the Badlands, it looks like we’re going to get some Game of Thrones-esque politicking. Though unlike Westeros, the world of Badlands is populated by a cast (and extras) who are more diversely reflective of the world we actually live in.


Into the Badlands season 3 cast at WonderCon. Nick Frost, Lorraine Toussaint, Daniel Wu, and series co-creator Alfred Gough.

During their WonderCon panel, we found out that this season’s big bad is revealed to be a warlord named Pilgrim (Babou Ceesay), and his hand of the king — I mean… powerful right hand — is Cressida (Lorraine Toussaint). Toussaint described their relationship as complicated and “quite Greek” — which leads me to believe we’re going to get some Lannister-level parallels between Pilgrim and Cressida.

We find Sunny (Daniel Wu) on his own as a “samurai single father.” Having a baby as a device for constant peril can go over well, or it can become rather annoying (I’m looking at you, Judith from The Walking Dead), but given how many storylines are actually being woven together on the show, it’s possible we’ll only have palatable doses of infant screen time.

Show co-creator Alfred Gough also addressed the lack of guns on the show (particularly in light of the current conversation about gun control):

“It’s a martial arts drama, and sort of when we were conceiving it we knew we didn’t want to do something historical. Guns were always going to be an issue in that.

Look, I’ve done these things as well with Shanghai Noon and whatnot. Somebody has a gun, the guns get kicked out of their hands, and then they fight. And that’s not what we wanted to do, we wanted something where the martial arts was integral to the storytelling.

Given the introduction of Pilgrim and Cressida, and their Azra roots (Azran?) it sounds like we’re going to see a shift from fighting warlords, to fighting gods. Now that we’ve got people with powers we can expect more comedic fights… more brutal hand on hand close action fights… Because of the dark energy type thing — that opens up the Super Saiyan type stuff.”

Gough pointed out the extra care they enjoy taking with representing diversity on the show — how the women (in this season in particular) will be the power players to look out for. He talked about how they’ve had strong characters of many races as well as those with disabilities, and how martial arts is a great equalizer when it comes to fighting.

On other shows, according to Gough, every vision of the future you see looks like 18th Century England, whereas Into the Badlands understands that “the future isn’t going to be a bunch of white people.”

Gough said, “You can walk into any movie studio in town and say, ‘I want to have a diverse cast and I want to be inclusive.’ And they will absolutely go ‘Yes, nobody’s standing in your way.’” Toussaint chimed in with, “That is bull****.” Gough continued, “Because then you actually have to do it from the ground up. You have to say, ‘I’m casting these roles a certain way.’”

If Cressida is half as charming (and imposing) as Toussaint is in person, we’re in for quite the clash between her and The Widow. She expressed how excited she was to “play dress up and wield swords.” We found out we can look forward to dead octopi nunchucks, Bajie (Nick Frost) to have to face his Azra associations, the return of Nathaniel Moon (who’s back with an upgraded Steampunk meets Klaw of Black Panther style hand), and M.K. to face questions of loyalty. Characters who’ve not interacted to this point will suddenly come face to face as the past two seasons converge.

And of course, we’ll some see some badass fights.

Into the Badlands returns to AMC on April 22nd.

(Last Updated March 27, 2018 4:42 pm )

I remember talking to Alfred Gough in 2016 about the possibility of guns coming into the show, and he said flat out that it would 'kill it' or something to that effect.

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Season 3 premieres this Sunday!

I'll have the first of my exclusive BTS coverage up this Friday. Stay tuned.

I’m an Asian American Actor Who Went to China Before Hollywood Would Cast Me as a Lead (Guest Blog)
“Growing up a Chinese-American kid in 1970s and 1980s California, I saw no possibility for me to become an actor,” “Into the Badlands” star Daniel Wu writes
Daniel Wu | April 17, 2018 @ 1:09 PM


AMC

Producing and starring in AMC’s “Into the Badlands” is a professional experience that I never thought I would see. It’s not just because drama and martial arts done together with a diverse cast is an American television first. Or because joining its cast was an unexpected homecoming for me.

For the 20 years before “Into the Badlands,” I spent my career working largely in Hong Kong and China. In 1997, while traveling in Hong Kong just after graduating from the University of Oregon with a degree in architecture, I was spotted by director Yonfan. He asked me to take the lead role in his film “Bishonen.” Without either acting experience or a full grasp of the Cantonese language (Shanghai dialect was spoken at home), I turned down the role at first. He relentlessly pressed me to change my mind, and after a month I gave in.

It was a decision that changed my life and put me on a path that I never dared dream for myself. Two weeks after the film wrapped, I was on the set of my second film. Within two years I had done six films. By 2000, I was playing lead roles in everything from romantic comedies to big-budget action films. Now, 70 films later, my work has been embraced all over Chinese-speaking Asia.

Would any of this happened to me if I’d decided to start a career in acting at home? I really don’t think so.

Growing up a Chinese-American kid in 1970s and 1980s California, I saw no possibility for me to become an actor, especially one playing lead roles. There were many characters I loved on television — white, black and Latino — but I rarely saw people like myself represented. When I did see an Asian man appear on the screen, he was either a gross stereotype or something even worse.

I grew up watching “Kung Fu,” a TV series starring a white man (David Carradine) in yellow face playing a Chinese man. Legend has it that Bruce Lee had developed the concept for the show, hoping to creating an opportunity for himself. The studio loved the idea but cast a white man. While Bruce Lee eventually became a global icon, it was only after his untimely death — and after he first found opportunity in Hong Kong.

Almost two decades before “Kung Fu” aired, my parents immigrated to the U.S. Escaping war and political unrest, they came in pursuit of their idea of the American Dream. Both earned advanced degrees in the U.S. and worked to establish themselves professionally.

Arriving in Berkeley, Calif., as newlyweds in 1961, my parents were barred from purchasing the house they wanted when the realtor told them it was in a “Whites Only” neighborhood. Undeterred, they went on to buy a house in a neighborhood nearby. From that house they could see up into the Berkeley Hills where the most beautiful and coveted homes in town were.

My mom would often tell my dad, “One day we will have a house there. ” And less than 10 years later they did it. And from that point on, they set their sights on making sure that their three kids received every opportunity to achieve their own dreams.

My mother had lofty goals for us. I remember a period when my mother kept planting a seed in my head, telling me that I could be the first Chinese-American president of the United States.

So it is kind of ironic that I had to leave the country for 20 years and become known to an audience of 1 billion Chinese before I would have the opportunity to come back to the U.S. and live my American Dream. And it’s also ironic that my Shanghai-born parents were immigrants to the U.S. and that I went the opposite way, to Hong Kong. But the root of my parents’ journeys and my own was the same — the pursuit of opportunity.

In retrospect, I feel very fortunate to have begun my career the way I did. Living and working in Asia insulated me from the race issue that is all-pervasive in entertainment in the U.S., especially now. When I won a part in Hong Kong, it was because I was right for it and not just because I fit the bill racially. Conversely, if I was rejected, it was because of my ability, which was something I could work on and not because of my race, which I couldn’t. So instead of being an angry Asian American actor lamenting about limited roles, being in Asia allowed me to focus on the craft of acting and to choose roles that helped broaden me as an actor.

My time in Asia not only insulated me from spirit-breaking casting situations that my fellow Asian American actor friends endured, but it allowed me to become a better actor. It also brought me closer to my culture, and made me who I am today. When I did enter Hollywood, knowing that my peeps had my back gave me a lot of confidence. If I had spent years in U.S. casting rooms getting rejected because I wasn’t the right skin color, or turning down one stereotypical role after another, or taking said roles because I needed to pay rent, I would have quit a long time ago.

After the first season of “Into the Badlands” debuted, I was reluctant to be a racial role model. I just wanted to focus on the work and make great television. During my 20 years in Asia I never needed to talk about these topics, let alone be the center of attention about them.

But after the second season premiered, and we learned about the impact the show was having, I started to understand the importance of stepping up. I’ve accepted the fact that I am one of the very few Asian men in the American entertainment and that by default people were going to look to me symbol of change. So as people have embraced me I have learned to embrace that new role.

Am I going to run for president? Hell no. But I think my parents’ dream for me was to find my place in this country, to be successful at what I do and most importantly, to be happy. I am proud to know that I might have some part in righting what happened to Bruce Lee over 40 years ago. And I am proud that some kid might watch “Into the Badlands” and think, “I want to be like him!”

HOLLYBLOGS

Daniel Wu is an actor, director and producer who has been featured in over 60 films, with his breakout role in Benny Chan's "Gen-X Cops." He received two more Hong Kong Film Award nominations in 2005: for Best Actor in "One Night in Mongkok" and Best Supporting Actor (alongside boyhood idol Jackie Chan) in "New Police Story," a role that also brought him Taiwan's Golden Horse Award as Best Supporting Actor. He also won the prestigious Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director for his 2006 feature, "The Heavenly Kings." His string of international film hits includes "Night Corridor" (2003, Best Actor nomination at Taiwan's 40th Golden Horse Awards), Frank Coraci's 2004 remake of "Around the World in 80 Days," Quentin Tarantino's presentation of "The Man With the Iron Fists" (2012), "Europa Report" (2013), Jackie Chan's "Chinese Zodiac" (2012) and Dean Devlin's "Geostorm" (2017). Wu also starred in Duncan Jones' epic sci-fi adventure "Warcraft" (2016) and opposite Alicia Vikander in "Tomb Raider" (2018). In April 2018, he returns for his third season as Sunny in AMC's "Into the Badlands."

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READ INTO THE BADLANDS Season 3: Journey to the West – Sunny, M.K. and Bajie by Gene Ching

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