On March 19, 2017, Season Two of AMC's innovative martial arts series INTO THE BADLANDS premieres. A new character is introduced this season – comic actor Nick Frost steps into the role of Bajie. Those familiar with INTO THE BADLANDS know that it's inspired by the 16th century Chinese epic, Journey to the West, written by Wu Cheng'en. Journey to the West is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature. It tells the beloved legend of Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, and his three companions, Monk Xuanzang, Pigsy and Sandy, on their journey to India (west of their starting point in China) to retrieve the Buddhist sutras. Although ostensibly derived from Buddhist mythology, Journey to the West is truly more of a Chinese tale because the questing quartet also encounter the pantheon of Chinese folk gods and demons, as well as Laozi, the author of Daoism's most fundamental work, the Dao De Jing (a.k.a. Tao Te Ching).
The lead character of INTO THE BADLANDS is named Sunny [Daniel Wu], a nod to Sun Wukong. Another leading role is M.K. [Aramis Knight], which is short for "monk." M.K. has a mysterious and lethal power, nicknamed "dark chi" by the cast. He becomes unstoppable when his blood is drawn. Alfred Gough, writer and executive producer for INTO THE BADLANDS, explains “We have the mystical element which is the – we don't call it 'chi' in the show but that's essentially what it is. And we explore that more this season too, like where did people like M.K. come from, or where do we think he came from? How does that tie in? So we start to answer some, without giving a lot away.”
All the Barons in the Badlands want to capture M.K. to capitalize on his destructive power. In Journey to the West, Xuanzang is such a pure monk that if a demon can devour his flesh, they will gain immortality. M.K. is Sunny's "colt," a Badlands term for a Clipper apprentice. Clippers are the assassins in the Badlands and Sunny is the deadliest one with the most kills. Monkey King Sun Wukong is the greatest warrior too, powerful enough to challenge the gods. Both Sun and Sunny must protect the monk and M.K. through their perilous journey. INTO THE BADLANDS makes other allusions to Journey to the West that are more subtle. The Widow [Emily Beecham] might be interpreted as one of the Spider Demons. In Journey to the West there is a coven of seven sister Spider Demons, and the Widow oversees an all-female band of warriors. But this allusion is more of a stretch.
Bajie is the most direct allusion so far. Bajie is named for Zhu Bajie, Journey to the West's most comical character affectionately known as Pigsy. Pigsy is a demon, driven by the sins of lust, sloth and gluttony. He was once a Heavenly Marshal, but he got too drunk at a Heavenly party and tried to molest the Moon Goddess. As punishment, he was banished to Earth in the form of a Pig Demon. But just as Sunny, M.K. and possibly the Widow are original characters that are only loosely based on Journey to the West, Bajie promises to be something fresh too.
“The biggest new introduction is Nick Frost who plays a character called Bajie, and he is somebody that Sunny's going to meet outside the Badlands,” explains Gough some more. “So at the end of last season, the River King took him and he put him on the boat. So we open the season in this massive mine in which he realizes the mine is actually an ancient city and they are actually mining for the detritus of our past. So they're looking at like watches and things. The city has been covered. It's underground and they're inside digging things out and this is where he meets Bajie. Bajie becomes his sort of unlikely ally to his journey, which is to get back into the Badlands to find Veil [Madeleine Mantock] and find the baby. So that's really Sunny's journey. Bajie is a con man, so sometimes he double-crosses Sunny, sometimes he's on his side. And I think what Nick does too for the show, which is great, is adds a humor injection to it. He's great in the show. He does some fighting – we get to see him do a little, sometimes unwittingly. So that's also been a lot of fun. As the season goes along, you realize he's actually much more connected to this world than we think when we first see him. He's probably the biggest new character that we introduce this season... He was actually a character in the Monkey King. Just Bajie. In the Monkey King, he's a comic relief but you never know who's side he's on, so that's what we took.”
Can He Not Be Called "Pigsy"?
In person, Nick Frost is a lot like the character he plays – larger than life, ebullient, with the razor-sharp quick wit of a professional comedian. A longtime collaborator of Simon Pegg, Nick is best known for his work in SHAUN OF THE DEAD (2004), ATTACK THE BLOCK (2011), CUBAN FURY (2014), and as the digitally-dwarfed Nion in SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN (2012) and THE HUNTSMAN: WINTER'S WAR (2014). He recounts getting the part. “It was one of those things where my agent contacted me and tells me about INTO THE BADLANDS. I had to get up on a Saturday morning – 6 AM – to meet Miles [Millar, an executive producer and writer like Gough], you know? In a coffee house in Chiswick which is a place near where Miles and I live. I mean, everyone involved and AMC made it really really difficult for me to say 'no,' which was kind of flattering, you know? I think they looked at the criticism of Series One, and the only criticism I could find was they thought it was slightly too serious. That's not it's fault. I think this kind of genre is inherently serious. You know, someone's going to cut someone's head off – we have to do this thing or so-and-so is going to die – it's kind of serious. So I think they wanted to lighten the mood up slightly, and working with Daniel has been fantastic. I've just had a great opportunity to kind of be funny and bring him into it. I think the audience will see a different side to Sunny this season, slightly more humor and less killing. I mean, he still retains all his killing-ness, but now he has a human side and a heart – someone who's going to question him.”
“I have this sort of comedic banter with Nick's character,” adds Daniel Wu, “but there's always this inner frustration because he's trying to get back to the Badlands. He doesn't fully trust. He doesn't know where this guy's come from. They've been enslaved together so he got stuck with this guy. So he doesn't really know what he's about, but somehow this guy knows about everything. So he's trying to figure this guy out. So there's that – their chemistry trying to get to know each other. Then them being on the same team, fighting through all this stuff and getting to Veil and the baby.
“It's into the story Journey to the West, he's Pigsy,” continues Nick. “Although one of the very first things I said was, 'Can he not be called 'Pigsy'?' I got to play him as me essentially. He's a kind of a heightened, more aggressive version of me. He's a drug dealer and his morals are questionable, you know, just rolls with the punches so to speak, but he also has an inherent skill to witness an opportunity and bring it out for everything that he can get out of it. It's a good character to play. It can be funny and beat people up, have a sex scene, it feels really dimensional and kind of human, which I think is nice. Because these people live in a post-apocalyptic shithole doesn't mean that you still don't have every facet of humanity as you do now, you know what I mean? So he's just another type of person who we hadn't seen until now.”
Fat Pig or Wild Boar?
First and foremost, INTO THE BADLANDS is a martial arts show, and there's this weird Hollywood notion that big people can't fight well. It's absurd, really, because as any martial arts practitioner knows, size matters, especially with combat sports like Sumo. Daniel Wu, who has an extensive background in martial arts and was initially brought onto the show just for that, is quick to defend his co-star's fighting prowess. “He [Nick] even does some fight scenes. It's pretty cool. In CUBAN FURY, he can move. He can move pretty well. I remember seeing an article that announced when he was joining our cast and they were like, 'Obviously he's not going to be doing any fighting,' which was kind of rude to say because it's like a big guy can't fight? But he definitely has some very short fight scenes and he does some moves.”
Nick seems a little less confident, but with his wry sense of humor it's hard to tell how much is just self-effacing, just for laughs. “Some of that comes from the fact that I'd just finished CUBAN FURY. I tried to be a dancer for seven months, so in terms of balletic, I think there was that. I think looking for a big man who can move and fight, there's not many of them. If you come on a day when we're fighting and see my stunt double, you see the stunt men wearing lots of pillows. It's a sad thing to see when you see the stunt men. 'Oh really? Do I really look like that?' But I kind of do, so…”
In truth, Nick does have a background in kickboxing, and perhaps more brutal, he played rugby. Both served him well when developing his character for Bajie. “I'm a brawler. I'm a wrestler. I'm a spiteful fighter. I'll throw sand at you. He's one of those guys. He's a prison fighter. He will literally pick anything up and pop someone over the head. He's a survivor.
“The fights have been fantastic, and they've been my favorite bits. Get up at 4 AM and 3 hours learning a 4-page scene is fantastic. I think what Dee Dee [Ku – the master fight choreographer] and the guys do make it so easy.”
Having worked in Hong Kong as an actor for some five-dozen-plus films, Daniel Wu knows Journey to the West very well. Some of his cast mates aren't nearly as familiar, but they don't really need to be because INTO THE BADLANDS doesn't depend upon its Journey to the West roots. However, Nick's character is a little different. Bajie is the first INTO THE BADLANDS character to literally take the name of the character that inspired him. So, was Nick familiar with Journey to the West? “Yeah a little bit. I think if you dig too deep then it's going to sully what you're going to try and do. I'm not suggesting anything that I'm doing is original, but it's nice to not go in and be 'Alright, I need to do this' or 'I need to tick these boxes so this group of fans will be happy.' You start getting bogged down with that type of mentality of trying to please everyone or being saccharin sweet or not saying anything at all, and I'd rather do that than everything else. But yeah, a bit. Do you have MONKEY? Watching that every night.”
When it was announced that Nick Frost was joining INTO THE BADLANDS, the press release alluded that Bajie might have some secret, a dark past. Those familiar with Journey to the West guessed it could be like the original, that Bajie was a Heavenly Marshal, cast out of heaven and cursed to Earth. In the Badlands, that could easily translate to a banished Baron. But Nick revealed otherwise. SPOILER ALERT When asked what that secret might be, without missing a beat, Nick gave up the plot twist. “I'm a woman.” END SPOILER
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Gene Ching :
For more coverage on this, see "On the Set of Into the Badlands" by Gene Ching in our May+June 2017 issue. The Into the Badlands official site is here.
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