Before I get into this post I would like to applaud AMC they have been very consistent with giving a variety of shows, and also giving the promotional push for a lot of the shows on their station, from Better call Saul, Walking Dead, Fear The Walking Dead, Breaking Bad, which I’ve seen all these shows, and now the long awaited show “Into The Badlands”. Now I’ve been ready to see this show since the beginning of the year when I started seeing previews and promos, saying to myself I can’t wait for November 15th to come, and then the panel for Into the Badlands at New York Comic Con I missed the live stream. I’ve been keeping tabs on this show as long as possible finding out, they have the martial arts choreographer from Kill Bill, and a lot of other famous movies involving martial arts. So I was totally amped and prepared for this show to come and bring something new to the table. I will not give a full review on this show, just my honest first impression, since I think it is still early on in this show with only on it’s second episode.
First we meet Sunny played by Daniel Wu who sees a group of people killed on the side of the road by some Nomads as they call them, seeing the nomads have a trunk filled with something in it, we get our first real fight scene, Sunny brutally destroys all the nomads putting them to shame twisted their arms and legs into different motions and cracking skulls and using his two swords to defeat the nomads. Sunny opens up the trunk to find a boy by the name of M.K., very mysterious but also very interesting, as we find out that M.K. has a special gift which makes him very dangerous. This show kind of reminds me of the show that was canceled awhile ago called “Revolution”, if you haven’t watched that show I suggest you go watch it, but Into the Badlands seems like its the more hardcore version of that show. We see that the badlands is set sometime in the near future where there is nothing left, but a wasteland and a few towns that have a small population miles away.
We Then meet Quinn aka “The Baron” who seems at this point as the Head Boss of the show, Sunny is his top assassin, and is very close to the Baron. Baron has an army being trained to be one of the top of armies in the badlands and also to go up against The Black Widow, from what we can tell she wants to destroy anything the Baron has. Baron is a very interesting man who owns Poppy fields, and anyone who does not wish to fight in his army or train will be sent to the poppy fields, what I hope to find out is how he became this boss and how come everyone wants to follow him. M.K. has a very special gift where if he is injured he goes into a supersonic kind of mode where he can not be hurt. Sunny finds a medallion that he feels might connect him and M.K. but wishes not to say anything.
This show has a lot of potential to be amazing only two episodes in I can see a lot more people getting hooked on to it. While watching this show I think I expected a little more, but I think I know even though this is only the beginning of the season that it will get even crazier. I love the fight scenes in this show, if you are looking for new martial arts and hardcore fight scenes that are raw this is the place to see it. Especially one particular fight scene in the first episode with Sunny fighting in the rain against a number of hit men sent to kill him, from the camera angles to the whole fighting scene I loved it. As I write this I found another comparison, but this show randomly also gave me “The Legend of the Seeker” kind of vibe. I don’t know how many people watched that show when it came out in the early 2000’s but I loved it.
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I think AMC has a winner with this show can’t wait for more crazy action scenes, and it seems that a big rivalry with the Baron and Widow is going to come into action soon. I’m predicting that Sunny and M.K. are some how related or come from the same place, but Sunny does not wish to reveal his true Identity to anyone especially not the Baron’s son and also since Sunny was very young when the baron found him. I also think Ryder Quinn (Baron’s son) will come to blows with Sunny because of how suspicious he is of the close relationship with he has with his father I recently read that a lot of people think the characters in this show are amazing, but they need more personality, I don’t think that’s the case, I think everyone has their own vision of how these characters should act, but if you’ve been watching these last two episodes you can hear the banter between like Sunny and Ryder, and even Quinn feels certain things towards each person. We see that Sunny kind of blindly follows the baron, but he also has his own agenda with the woman he befriends in the town and also trying to help M.K., So it will be interesting to see Quinn and Sunny fight to the death.
I also recently saw a tweet where someone said how is the main character of the show Asian and he doesn’t speak Chinese. I think so many people believe if something has to deal with Martial arts, we’re instantly going to get subtitles and an English voice over, or quirky tricks and a funny style personality character. Daniel Wu is amazing so far in my opinion and seeing how he is the executive producer of this show, he’s going put everything he has seen from different movies and even his own experiences and create an amazing show. I just hope everyone tunes in and keeps a strong ear to what’s going on. I loved all the feedback I saw everyone on twitter was saying they almost didn’t want to live tweet the show that’s how focused they were on the show, and how much it grabbed their attention. Only two episodes in but I am really enjoying this show so far, next week looks amazing.
RiceBall 