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Thread: Into The Badlands

  1. #31
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    A little dated, but I'm ttt-ing this a lot intentionally

    Regrettably, Marton Csokas and Orla Brady were the two stars at the Hollywood premiere that I did not get to meet. I ran out of time. My bad.

    'Into The Badlands' Cast Previews Season 1 At NYCC; Meet The Baron And Baroness Of AMC's New Martial Arts Series
    By Alex Garofalo @Ja9GarofaloTV a.garofalo@ibtimes.com on October 11 2015 12:12 AM EDT


    Marton Csokas (left) and Orla Brady (right), pictured as Quinn (left) and Lydia (right) in "Into the Badlands" Season 1, teased their characters' relationship at New York Comic Con Oct. 10, 2015. AMC

    Ahead of the November premiere of "Into the Badlands," the cast of the highly anticipated AMC series descended on New York Comic Con to introduce fans to the show's unique world. Unique is an understatement. AMC is billing the show as the first true martial arts-based series on television and the network has pulled out all the stops to bring the futuristic tale to the small screen.

    The result is a lush world of feudal barons ruling over a warrior class of poor commoners in a gun-free, dystopian version of America. Marton Csokas, who plays Quinn, the Badlands' most powerful baron, and Orla Brady, who plays Lydia, Quinn's calculating wife, spent Comic Con teasing TV's most ruthless power couple since the Underwoods ("House of Cards").

    Quinn and Lydia lord over their alloted section of the Badlands -- there are seven barons in total -- with the help of an army of former impoverished children known as Clippers. Series star Daniel Wu plays Sunny, the most feared Clipper of them all. Quinn keeps Sunny and the other Clippers under his thumb by convincing them they are better off under his rule than outside the Badlands where they would struggle to survive. Csokas told International Business Times at Comic Con Quinn's pitch is, at least, partly true.

    "He probably believes that that's true, but he certainly is using it as a ruling rod," Csokas said. "But I think in part it is true."

    After all, in the Badlands, no one can truly trust anyone else, not even their own son.

    "Everybody that they come across wants to usurp, even in his own house. His son that he shares with Lydia wants to do exactly that," Csokas said. "He does not agree with how things are run and in the confidence of youth, which can overleap itself, if he was not psychologically dominated, he would be happy to kill Quinn. And in fact he does just that. All these forces to bring him down and what he has built -- it would end. I think he believes he is preserving the people in an extreme way. So, in the Darwinian sense I think he thinks he is doing what he has to because if he didn't somebody else would."

    Meanwhile, Quinn's wife Lydia has her own perspective.

    "She is in that curious position of not being empowered herself, but deriving her power from the people around her and having been married to the most powerful baron in the Badlands, she has been in a pretty good position" Orla Brady told IBT. "That is changing at the start of the show. [Quinn] is exercising his right to take another wife. It's not easy for Lydia. That's where she stands at the beginning of the story. She is literally seeing a younger version of herself. She sees ambition and knows that puts her in danger."

    Lydia might not have any combat prowess, but she's still a fighter. In fact, elsewhere in the "Badlands" universe the wife of another baron has killed her husband and taken over as the first female baron, going by the name the Widow (Emily Beecham). The power move could serve as inspiration for Lydia, who wants to see her son take power.

    "When someone does something that is an entirely new idea and you see that it is possible -- Quinn has a line in episode one [when he gets the news about the Widow] that is: 'I hope this doesn't give [Lydia] any ideas.' It's said as a bit of an aside, but many a truth is said in jest," Brady said. "I think a seed has been planted there."

    However, predicting too much discord between the longtime partners might be premature.

    "They have been a team for years. There is no reason for them to be against each other," Brady said.

    "Even if [Quinn] wouldn't admit it, they would be lost without each other," Csokas said.

    Fans will have to tune in to the "Into the Badlands" premiere to see how the couple's complicated (to say the least) relationship shakes out. The six-episode first season of the AMC series begins airing on Nov. 15.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  2. #32
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    innerestin...

    Amazon Prime Acquires Daniel Wu’s ‘Into the Badlands’ in U.K.


    Courtesy of James Dimmock/AMC
    October 23, 2015 | 08:10AM PT
    Leo Barraclough

    LONDON — Amazon Prime Video has acquired exclusive streaming rights in the U.K. to AMC’s “Into the Badlands” from Entertainment One Television.

    Each episode of the genre-bending martial arts series, loosely based on the Chinese classic tale “Journey to the West,” will be available to Amazon Prime members in the U.K. on a weekly basis from Nov. 17, after they air in the U.S. Entertainment One launched the show at TV market Mipcom earlier this month.

    Set in a devastated future world controlled by powerful feudal barons, “Into the Badlands” tells the story of a ruthless warrior, Sunny (Daniel Wu, “Tai Chi Zero”), and a young boy, M.K. (Aramis Knight, “The Dark Knight Rises”), who embark on a spiritual odyssey across a dangerous land.

    The show is created by executive producers/showrunners/writers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (“Smallville”), and executive produced by Stacey Sher and Michael Shamberg, director David Dobkin, fight director Stephen Fung and Daniel Wu.

    Prime Video offers subscribers access to more than 15,000 movies and TV episodes, including “Transparent,” “Mr. Robot,” “Bosch,” “Hand of God,” “Vikings,” “Outlander” and “Ripper Street.”
    I still have to figure a way to watch this as I don't have AMC (and this doesn't help me). I've seen the first two episodes so I'm good until December, I suppose.
    Gene Ching
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  3. #33
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    The first fight scene clip released

    This fight comes up early in the first episode.

    Gene Ching
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  4. #34
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    The Characters of Into the Badlands: The Clippers

    Gene Ching
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  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by GeneChing View Post
    This fight comes up early in the first episode.
    Fight choreography and cinematography look kind of boring

  6. #36
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    Stephen Wu

    Oops. That's an embarrassing mistake NY Daily News.

    Steampunk meets kung fu in AMC’s latest drama ‘Into the Badlands’
    BY Don Kaplan
    NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
    Friday, October 30, 2015, 5:59 PM


    To make “Badlands” work, they turned to accomplished fight coordinators like Stephen Wu who have worked with Jackie Chan and other martial arts masters. James Minchin III/AMC

    It’s got some serious kick.

    “Into the Badlands,” AMC’s new kung fu fantasy, aims to slice its way into people’s living rooms starting Nov. 15. The show will rely on the means and methods that have made classic Hong Kong cinema into one of the world’s most popular forms of entertainment.

    It stars Daniel Wu as an assassin living 500 years from now who is forced to chop his way through a “Mad Max”-style future. Guns don’t exist there, and the deadliest weapons are swords, fists and feet.

    “It’s a mashup of all the things we love,” says Alfred Gough, who created the drama with longtime collaborator Miles Millar (“Shanghai Noon,” “Smallville”). “It’s martial arts, science fiction and Japanese samurai — you know, the good stuff.”


    "Into the Badlands" stars Daniel Wu as an assassin living 500 years from now who is forced to chop his way through a “Mad Max”-style future. James Dimmock/AMC

    The mash up is a strange one, but it works.

    Wu uses his mastery of Chinese martial arts to pound, slice and disembowel his way through a post-apocalyptic world. The social structure mimics feudal Japan. There are barons (like the shogunate) who control land and vital resources and cling to power with personal armies of warriors called clippers (samurai). Outside the walls of their lush plantations (the show is filmed near New Orleans), they are pitted against a society of nomads (ronin).


    Madeleine Mantock plays Veil in "Into the Badlands." James Minchin III/AMC

    Wu — a master at various kung fu styles, including shaolin, wushu and muay thai kickboxing — plays Sunny, an elite assassin and one of the closest advisers to Baron Quinn (Marton Csokas). He presides over a sprawling fort that looks a lot like a Southern plantation.

    The chop-socky meets steampunk style show is loosely based on the classic Chinese tale “Journey to the West” and follows Sunny and a young boy who try to journey across a dangerous land to find enlightenment.

    Emily Beecham (“28 Weeks Later,” “The Village”), Sarah Bolger (“The Tudors,” “In America”) and Oliver Stark (“The Adventurer: The Curse of the Midas Box,” “My Hero”) also star.


    “If you want those highly stylized Hong Kong fight scenes, there’s no rule book. And it’s not something a traditional network would have the patience for," Miles Millar said. Patti Perret/AMC

    “The only thing that really matters in this world is strength and weakness. Race, sex, none of it matters,” Gough says. “Martial arts is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re male or female.”

    But the task of bringing high-quality, cinema-style martial arts to U.S. TV is no small feat. That’s according to Gough and Millar, who oversaw two Jackie Chan films, “Shanghai Noon” and its sequel “Shanghai Knights.”

    The pair was also behind “Martial Law,” the 1998 CBS show that starred Chan’s longtime pal and co-star, Sammo Hung.


    "The Tudors" star Sarah Bolger playsJade.
    James Minchin III/AMC


    Marton Csokas is a scar-faced feudal boss.
    Patti Perret/AMC

    To make “Badlands” work, they turned to accomplished fight coordinators like Stephen Wu who have worked with Chan and other martial arts masters, and San Francisco-born Wu, who was discovered and managed by Chan.

    “Making this show is challenging in every regard,” says Millar. “If you want those highly stylized Hong Kong fight scenes, there’s no rule book. And it’s not something a traditional network would have the patience for. These scenes are more like playing jazz. You do whatever makes it work. There’s a lot of freestyle maneuvering.”

    To get to that level, the entire cast was sent to a martial arts boot camp for six weeks before production started. Participants learned the same martial arts training system used by Jackie Chan and Jet Li.

    But the visceral fight scenes aren’t the only part of the show that requires painstaking attention.

    AMC has set the bar so high with other groundbreaking programming, like “The Walking Dead” and “Mad Men,” that a nuanced storyline and rich character development is an integral part of “Badlands.” The show aims to take its place among other high-octane dramas, like “Sons of Anarchy” and “Game of Thrones.”

    “AMC wanted to do something that was difficult and groundbreaking with this,” says Millar. “So the level of drama had to match the martial arts.”
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  7. #37
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    Warcraft teaser

    Only relevant because of Daniel Wu.

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  8. #38
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    My All American trailer

    Only relevant because of Sarah Bolger.



    Gene Ching
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  9. #39
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    Rolling Stone buzz

    'Into the Badlands': Meet the New Dystopian Kung-Fu Plantation Western
    AMC's latest would-be hit isn't a genre show — it's 'every' genre show rolled into one
    By Rob Sheffield November 4, 2015


    Daniel Wu, center, in 'Into the Badlands.' James Minchin III/AMC

    Kung-Fu and the Western: always an unkillable combination. Into the Badlands, AMC's post-apocalyptic martial-arts thriller set in the deep South — or what's left of it after civilization collpases — kicks off with a bang: Mystery man Daniel Wu rides in on his motorcycle wearing a red leather trench coat, shades and a ceremonial sword. Before he fights, he makes a point of removing the blade, because he prefers to handle his blood baths with his fists. (Wu is a veteran of Hong Kong action flicks like 2012's Tai Chi Zero; one of the fight directors is Master Dee Dee from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and the Kill Bill movies.) Many corpses later, someone finally gets around to asking who the hell he is: "Got a name? You just show up, kill people and leave?"

    The guy's name is Sunny, not the most terrifying name in the world, and he's a Clipper — a professional killer with more than 400 tattoos to mark his ever-increasing body count. Loosely based on a 16th-century Chinese tale, Journey to the West, about the adventures of a wandering Buddhist monk, Badlands conjures the ghost of Kung Fu, the classic Seventies yarn with David Carradine roaming the Wild West seeking enlightenment and kicking ass. Throw in some Game of Thrones intrigue, loads of Django Unchained Civil War plantation ambience, the spirit of Bruce Lee and the bleak vibe of The Walking Dead, and you've got Badlands.

    The last remnants of known civilization are controlled by evil barons like Sunny's master, Quinn, the marvelous Marton Csokas. With his quasi-Amish beard and starched collars, the baron rules his opium empire while playing old blues records on the Victrola in his mansion, living large on a plantation surrounded by poppy fields. "People once thought there's a Holy Book," he proclaims in his Colonel Sanders drawl to his private army. "They believed it held the answers from a god that would save them. Boys, there is no god in the Badlands."

    He controls the poppy supply; the Widow, played by Emily Beecham, controls the oil, along with her all-girl army of Butterflies. She's the liveliest villain in the tale — think Mad Men's Christina Hendricks in full-on Marilyn mode, except Joan Holloway Harris never got to enjoy the pleasure of separating the McCann Erickson creeps' skulls from their shoulders. Ally Ioannides is her deadliest protogree Tilda, the Butterfly warrior as a punk rock Arya.

    It was the Baron who found Sunny as a child, shivering and abandoned, and trained him as a Clipper; he is now his bloodiest enforcer, with the tattoos to prove it. "No parents, no name, no past," the Baron says. "I figured if the Badlands hadn't killed him, there must be a strength inside him." (This is the kind of post-apocalyptic wasteland that has motorcycles, but not guns, which is convenient for professionals who specialize in kicking hombres in the face.) When a woman in his bed purrs, "I know buried under all this ink is a good man," Sunny just mutters, "You're wrong." But he's starting to wonder if there's a better way somewhere else. And on Into the Badlands, the tough question is who he'll have to kill to get there.

    From The Archives Issue 1248: November 19, 2015

    It's not quite "'every' genre show rolled into one". It's a genre we labelled three years ago: Chinese Steampunk. Hollywood is just catching up.
    Gene Ching
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  10. #40
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    Deadline review

    The video is embedded so you have to follow the link to view it.
    ‘Into The Badlands’ Review: AMC Series A Good Return For Martial Arts To TV
    by Dominic Patten
    November 5, 2015 12:49pm

    It’s mainly the huge shadow of blockbuster series The Walking Dead, but it often feels like there is a lot of postapocalyptic programming on AMC. But honestly, with the most successful show on TV on your schedule, who wouldn’t mine that vein even deeper? Earlier this year we had spinoff Fear The Walking Dead, and now we have Into The Badlands, debuting on November 15 right after TWD.

    Well, you’re in for a treat that night with the Daniel Wu-led martial arts series from Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. Into The Badlands, as my video review above says, is a smoldering, serpentine and supremely stylized series that does the legacy of Bruce Lee proud.

    Masterfully choreographed by EP and fight director Stephen Fung and superbly executed by the charismatic American-born Hong Kong star Wu, the fight scenes in ITB are gravity defying and mind blowing in a pretty good yarn of a narrative. As a huge martial arts devotee, as I also say in my video review, the series has some of the best and most versatile moves you will ever see on either the small or big screen.

    But action is nothing much without story and, though sometimes a bit slow in the carefully measured plot, the story in ITB is intriguingly based on the 16th century tale Journey To The West. The six-episode hourlong series depicts a Southern gothic-tinged, gun-free, godless America long after a great war, where seven barons rule the feudal lands with unsentimental ruthlessness enforced by armies of fighters called Clippers. And, to paraphrase Blade Runner, if you’re not Clipper, you’re little people.

    Among the greatest of Clippers is Wu’s Sunny, who serves the Baron Quinn, played like ultimate Amish evil by the too-often-overlooked Marton Csoksas. Add to the mix a war brewing among the Barons and the newly empowered Widow, portrayed with icy cool by Emily Beecham, and you have an upside-down world about to flip even more. On top of that, there’s the mysterious and powerful M.K. (Aramis Knight), a young man Sunny saves and brings on as his protégé, and you have journey of change on many levels.

    And it is a journey well worth taking – so suit up. Take a look at my Into The Badlands video review and tell us what you think.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
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  11. #41

    Plus there's a comic!

    Check out the comics prequel on AMC.com
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  12. #42
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    The NYT chimes in

    Premieres this Sunday!

    There’s ‘Kung Fu,’ and, in ‘Into the Badlands,’ There’s Hong Kong Kung Fu
    By ROBERT ITO NOV. 11, 2015


    Daniel Wu, star of AMC’s “Into the Badlands.” Credit James Dimmock/AMC

    WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIF. — In AMC’s new martial arts series, “Into the Badlands,” Daniel Wu plays Sunny, a motorcycle-riding, katana-wielding assassin whose loyalty to his flinty-eyed master is matched only by his prodigious kill count (400 and climbing).

    Al Gough and Miles Millar, of “Smallville” fame, are the show’s proud creators, but on a recent afternoon at the Soho House club here, they were holding forth on another martial arts television series, “Kung Fu,” the 1970s drama with David Carradine as a Shaolin monk.

    “I actually thought it was kind of boring,” Mr. Gough, 48, said of the series, which he first saw in reruns as a boy. “There wasn’t enough fighting in it. And then I realized, Oh my God, it’s a white dude.”

    When “Into the Badlands” begins on Sunday, it will be the only martial arts drama on television, and one of the few to tackle the genre since “Kung Fu” aired four decades ago. Biographers of the martial arts legend Bruce Lee claim that he lost out on the lead role in that earlier series because network execs didn’t think American audiences would watch a TV show starring a Chinese-American martial artist, even a show ostensibly about a Chinese-American martial artist. The role went to Mr. Carradine, whose kung fu skills were lackluster and who was not, of course, Chinese.


    “Looking back, it was a travesty,” said Miles Millar, right, of David Carradine’s casting as a Chinese martial arts fighter in the 1970s show “Kung Fu.” Mr. Millar and Al Gough, left, are creators of “Into the Badlands.” Credit Emily Berl for The New York Times

    “Looking back, it was a travesty,” Mr. Millar said.

    In many ways, “Badlands” is an effort to right that wrong while simultaneously bringing authentic Hong Kong-style kung fu to American audiences. The producers assembled a team of specialists and stuntmen led by the fight director and actor Stephen Fung (“House of Fury,” “Tai Chi Hero”) and the martial arts choreographer Ku Huen Chiu (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”), and took them to Louisiana, where the series is filmed.

    “Badlands” is set in a post-apocalyptic future in what was once the American Midwest, where all-powerful “barons” rule the land with the help of armies of warriors (think shoguns and samurai, except with oil fields). The show’s creators selected Mr. Wu, a Hong Kong star with more than 60 films to his credit, for the role of Sunny.

    Born in Berkeley, Calif., and raised in nearby Orinda, Mr. Wu was initially brought on board as an executive producer involved in the martial arts side of the series. He balked at accepting the lead role because of the physical effort it entailed. “I was 40 when I started the show, and I wasn’t sure if my body could take it,” Mr. Wu said in a phone interview from Hong Kong.

    His were valid concerns. As with action films in Hong Kong, the production of “Badlands” was divided between two units running concurrently: a main unit, with its full roster of actors and directors and makeup artists, and an equally large unit dedicated to fight scenes. The lead actor would have to work in both groups on a six-day-a-week schedule, combining full days with the main unit with the infamous training regimens required of Hong Kong-style martial arts filmmaking.

    The search for the lead actor lasted four months, with the producers seeing scores of hopefuls from the United States, Europe, Asia and Australia. Most could do martial arts and a few could act, but very few could do both. “We saw people who, if there actually was a Badlands in real life, they could probably be Sunny,” Mr. Gough said, laughing. “But they couldn’t act.”

    After prodding from the creators and producers, Mr. Wu finally agreed to take the role. “I think maybe that was our secret intention all along,” said an executive producer, Stacey Sher (“Django Unchained,” “Erin Brockovich”). “As a friend said to me, how can you do a martial arts television series with Daniel Wu that doesn’t star Daniel Wu?”

    The show began production last summer in southeast Louisiana, where the cast and crew endured temperatures that spiked into the high 90s; New Orleans’s oppressive humidity; and swarms of large, hungry mosquitoes. Add to that the show’s accelerated shooting schedule (six days per fight scene, as opposed to two weeks in your typical Hong Kong film), and one can see why martial-arts series are so rare. “When we got into it, we were like, now we know why no one else is doing this,” Mr. Wu said. “Because it’s so hard.”


    Sammo Hung as a Shanghai policeman in Los Angeles in the 1990s CBS series “Martial Law” (here with Tammy Lauren). Credit Bob Greene/CBS

    The series features two major fights per episode. Keen-eyed fans will spot homages to several well-known martial arts scenes, from the rain-soaked swordfight in Wong Kar-wai’s “The Grandmaster” to Bruce Lee’s battle royale in the Japanese dojo in “Fist of Fury” (a.k.a. “The Chinese Connection”). The level of violence equals those of Hong Kong action films, with eviscerations, snapped necks and impalements galore. In one scene, a master swordswoman named the Widow (Emily Beecham) juliennes a victim so neatly that all that’s left of him is a crimson cloud.

    “We spent a lot of time talking to standards and practices,” Mr. Millar said.

    In Hollywood action movies, directors mask their actors’ subpar fighting skills with shaky camera moves and extreme close-ups. In “Badlands,” the camera pulls way back, so that viewers can see 10 combatants (or 20, or 30) in a single shot. “The difference between American action and Hong Kong action is that in Hong Kong, you go wide,” Mr. Millar said.

    “Badlands” isn’t the first martial arts outing for Mr. Gough and Mr. Millar. The first two films they wrote together were “Lethal Weapon 4,” with Jet Li, and the Jackie Chan film “Shanghai Noon.” In 1998, midway between “Kung Fu” and “Badlands,” the two were writers on the CBS series “Martial Law,” which featured the Hong Kong action film star Sammo Hung as a Chinese policeman fighting crime in Los Angeles. The series was notable not for its story line or acting, but for its lead’s top-notch kung fu credentials.

    The show, Mr. Gough said, was sold to CBS on the strength of a single fight scene in a garage. “In some ways, it was the worst way to do a show,” he said.

    For “Badlands,” the creators were determined to make sure that the story and acting were at least as good as the fight sequences, and that the cast was as diverse and gender-balanced as possible. Sunny’s fiercest rival, the Widow, is played by a British woman; his love interest is black (Madeleine Mantock); the actor who plays his boss (Marton Csokas) hails from New Zealand; and his young protégé is portrayed by a performer of German/East Indian/Pakistani descent (Aramis Knight).

    When the writers created the show, Ms. Sher said, “all of the main barons were men.” But, she added, “my personal crusade is to turn everybody into a feminist.”

    And then there’s Mr. Wu, that rarest of actors on American TV: an Asian-American romantic lead in a drama series (members of that tiny fraternity have been largely confined to comedies, including the short-lived “Selfie” and “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend”). But it’s a milestone that Mr. Wu nearly overlooked, having starred in Hong Kong films for 18 years.

    “I really didn’t think about it until people started asking me about it,” he said. “And then someone sent me a picture of the billboard on Melrose Avenue, and I was like, O.K., this is crazy — I can’t remember seeing a billboard of an Asian dude on an American show, like, ever.’”
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
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  13. #43
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    USA Today chimes in too

    I've been talking about the TV martial arts trend for months now.

    Martial arts are alive and kicking on TV
    Bill Keveney, USA TODAY 11:11 a.m. EST November 11, 2015


    (Photo: James Minchin III, AMC)

    Watch out, TV viewers. The small screen is filling up with martial-arts masters.

    Sunny (Daniel Wu), a lethal enforcer in the future, feudal society of AMC’s Into the Badlands, is the latest to join a field that includes The Walking Dead’s Morgan, Sense8’s Sun Bak, Arrow and several characters in Netflix's Marco Polo. CBS also has Rush Hour, an adaptation of legend Jackie Chan’s film franchise, on the way.

    “With the popularity of UFC and how martial arts (have) become mainstream, I think people are more receptive and want to see more of it,” Wu says. "We saw Kung Fu 40 years ago and shows like Martial Law and Walker, Texas Ranger that showcased (martial arts), but we’re hitting the point where it’s ... not a niche genre anymore.”

    Here’s a rundown of contemporary warriors who wield hands, sticks and swords to attack and defend, along with a legend who kick-started the genre on TV nearly 50 years ago.

    Sunny (Wu) of AMC’s Into the Badlands (premieres Sunday, 10 p.m. ET/PT)


    Clipper Sunny (Daniel Wu), right, trains M.K. (Aramis Knight) in AMC's 'Into the Badlands.' (Photo: James Dimmock, AMC)

    Motorcycle-riding Sunny is a Clipper, an elite fighter who works for one of the seven barons who control a post-apocalyptic Midwest now known as the Badlands.

    “We’re in a world where guns don’t exist and people have to survive on their warrior skills,” Wu says. “Even though we’re in a dystopian future where society has reset itself and there’s a certain amount of order, it’s still about power. And the way they solve problems is through violence.”

    Wu, who was born in northern California and moved to Hong Kong as an adult, has enjoyed success in Chinese-language films, with Chan as a mentor. The actor’s martial-arts experience is put to good use in Badlands: He does almost all of his own stunt work.

    “For Sunny, we wanted to not be stuck in one style. We wanted to be dynamic. If it’s 300 years in the future, there may not be one type of fighting style,” says Wu.

    Morgan Jones (Lennie James) of AMC’s The Walking Dead (Sundays, 9 p.m. ET/PT)


    Morgan (Lennie James), left, takes part in martial-arts training with Eastman (John Carroll Lynch) in AMC's 'The Walking Dead.' (Photo: Gene Page, AMC)

    The mysterious Morgan picked up martial-arts skills, including the ability to swing a mean Bo staff, and a philosophy during Aikido training with Eastman (John Carroll Lynch), turning him from killer to peacemaker.

    “It is the way of the peaceful warrior,” says James. “The stick is a deadly weapon wielded in a certain way, but it is not necessarily a weapon that is designed to kill. Morgan’s thing is to protect himself but not necessarily by killing somebody else.”

    Sparing lives, as Morgan has done with the dangerous Wolves, may have consequences in the Alexandria community, James says. “What may well have been a good decision for him when he was alone may not be a good decision for the rest of the (survivors’) group and other Alexandrians.”

    The Arrow/Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) in CW’s Arrow (Wednesdays, 8 p.m. ET/PT)


    Stephen Amell plays the title character in the CW series, 'Arrow.' (Photo: Diyah Pera, The CW)

    A bow and a quiver of arrows are hardly the only tools Star City’s hero has in his fight against evil. His fighting skills, many learned during his years on a remote island, include Eskrima, Muay Thai, Wing Chun, Jiu Jitsu and boxing.

    Arrow’s skill set has global roots, fight/stunt coordinator James Banford says. “The countries of origin for Oliver's training ranges from China to Japan, Philippines, Russia, Thailand.”

    Sun Bak (Doona Bae) of Netflix’s Sense8 (renewed for Season 2)


    Doona Bae, right, plays Sun Bak in Netflix's 'Sense8.' (Photo: Murray Close, Netflix)

    Sun Bak is one of eight characters from around the world who find themselves mentally connected after experiencing a violent vision. They must figure out what happened, and why, as they evade an organization trying to capture them.

    Bae began her martial arts training in Korea with Doo-Hung Jung, who designed Sun’s Hapkido variation, which includes a range of attack and defense styles.

    Marco Polo cast (Netflix, Season 2 on its way)


    Olivia Cheng, in white, plays Mei Lin in Netflix's 'Marco Polo.' (Photo: Phil Bray, Netflix)

    Martial arts are a group endeavor in the story of explorer Marco Polo (Lorenzo Richelmy) in 13th-century China. Jia Sidao (Chin Han) practices Mantis-style Kung Fu; blind monk Hundred Eyes (Tom Wu) displays a compilation of styles that series creator John Fusco calls Golden Lotus; and Mei Lin (Olivia Cheng) shows her skill with Tai Chi as well as the sword.

    Kato (Bruce Lee) in ABC’s The Green Hornet (1967-68)


    Martial arts legend Bruce Lee, right, played Kato in the 1960s TV series, 'The Green Hornet.' (Photo: Silver Screen Collection, Getty Images)

    The Green Hornet only lasted one season, but it helped launch the entertainment career of martial arts legend Lee, who played valet and crime-fighting partner, Kato.

    Lee, who studied Wing Chun and developed a personal martial-arts philosophy, Jeet Kune Do, went on to a feature-film career that included Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon before he died at 32 in 1973.

    Wu lists Lee as one of his idols. “He was amazing. He was able to incorporate his philosophies about life into his martial arts, into his acting. He had this tremendous charisma.”
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

  14. #44
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    I'm excited for this show(btw yes gene i am back on the forums..lol) its a niche market and niche is good, as the fans will be consistent i think the first episode will make a big splash but think the number will be considerably lower moving forward, i just really hope this succeeds.. feels like 98 all over again.

  15. #45
    Join Date
    Jan 1970
    Location
    Fremont, CA, U.S.A.
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    47,947

    Our latest ezine offering

    Read Daniel Wu on INTO THE BADLANDS by me and get a sneak peak at our next cover.

    Good to have you back, Doug! A lot happening in martial media nowadays and your input here is very welcome.
    Gene Ching
    Publisher www.KungFuMagazine.com
    Author of Shaolin Trips
    Support our forum by getting your gear at MartialArtSmart

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