by Dominic Mah
So I went to my preferred karaoke bar in NYC the other night, and who should be there but two of the stars of AMC’s Into the Badlands, Emily Beecham and Ally Ioannides, a.k.a. The Widow and Tilda. This is because magical occurrences happen inside karaoke bars, all the time.
Continue reading “‘Into the Badlands’ Stars Go to Karaoke Bars And You Should Too”
Once again, we’re venturing back Into the Badlands as we finally get to see the much anticipated Baron Conclave. Last week, if you recall, we saw Minerva and Waldo arrive at Ryder’s estate to take part in the gathering. Basically, this is when all of the barons in the Badlands come together to sign agreements and hash out differences — without swords. Mostly. This particular conclave has been convened to vote on whether the Widow is allowed to even be a baron. Debates ensue, and all I can think of are the lyrics for both “Cabinet Battle” tracks from Hamilton.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: You Don’t Have the Votes”
In my quest to title each Into the Badlands recap after lyrics from a Hamilton song, the writers did me a solid by letting Nathaniel Moon, played by veteran actor Sherman Augustus, say a line from the classic George Washington showstopper:
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Teach ‘Em How to Say Goodbye”
AMC’s Into the Badlands is in their second season and are going strong with their viewership, storyline, and martial arts. Unlike other series that attempts the martial arts genre, Into the Badlands’ stellar moves can be attributed to executive producer, and star of the series, Daniel Wu.
The Nerds of Color got a chance to sit down and chat with the actor about the second season and what makes the show so appealing to audiences.
Continue reading “One-on-One with Into the Badlands’ Daniel Wu”
In the first part of a special podcast crossover with DC TV Classics, Keith chats with Into the Badlands co-creator Al Gough. They talk about Al’s start in Hollywood with his writing and producing partner Miles Millar; working with Hong Kong cinema legends like Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Donnie Yen, Michelle Yeoh, and Daniel Wu; how difficult it is to accurately portray kung fu on broadcast television; and the importance of representation and why the onus is on producers and directors to find and cast diverse talent.
Subscribe to DC TV Classics or download part two of this interview here.
Continue reading “Journey Into the Badlands with Co-Creator Al Gough”
AMC’s Into the Badlands might have gotten a ten-episode second season (up four episodes from season one), but there’s no slowing down narratively. Episode 2 — which is actually chapter 8, proving just how propulsive the story of the Badlands is — wastes no time getting Sunny out of the mines, after a pretty awesome, and gruesome, fight scene to open the show. I would put the rest of the episode into three distinct buckets, that just so happen to coincide with a line from Hamilton‘s “My Shot.” And yes, I’m keeping up these #IntoTheHamLands recap titles all season!
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Young, Scrappy, and Hungry”
After more than a year off the air, AMC’s dystopian martial arts epic Into the Badlands has finally returned! And with it, so have these NOC Recaps. Speaking of which, I’m going to try to title each recap with a line from Hamilton because 1.) seriously, have you met me?; and 2.) the Badlands writers have basically challenged me as much. So, appropriately enough, the Season Two premiere is named after a lyric from “Yorktown.”
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Friends All Scattered to the Winds”
Originally posted at Just Add Color
Into the Badlands is coming into its second season March 19, and even though we’re psyched about the level of action and and suspense, we’re also focused on the family aspect of the show, which is worrying about how Sunny’s going to get back to his family, Veil and their newborn baby.
Continue reading “Fans Sound Off on Into the Badlands Couple Sunny and Veil”
One of my favorite television series in the last year is Into the Badlands. The noirish dystopian Wuxia drama is the perfect blend of action, mystery and mysticism that keeps my eyes glued to the flatscreen.
As is the case with all things PoC excellence, Into the Badlands has caught its share of hate from racist white fandom. I’m not talking about legit criticisms but nitpicking and feeble excuses that are never made for legions of lesser white shows.
Needless to say I’m not having it.
When the shade is thrown, I’m honor bound to make the haters day a “Sunny” one.
Originally posted at COLOR
Hip hop hooray, Richonne (Rick and Michonne) is now officially canon in The Walking Dead! And, as luck would have it, such a development has happened in one of the most hallowed of months, Black History Month.
This didn’t go unnoticed by many on Twitter:
Continue reading “Three Reasons Why #Richonne is a Black History Month Gift”
Last year was the year of the most iconic feminist leading lady in action/sci-fi, arguably the most in cinematic history: the one and only Imperator Furiosa played be Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road. Thanks to a fellow NOC, I have finally finished the way too short first season of Into The Badlands. Following Furiosa and a long history of leading women in Hong Kong action cinema with better acting chops and doing more roundhouse damage than their male co-stars (Michelle Yeoh will be back soon as Yu Shu Lien people!), Into the Badlands also introduced us to strong heroines whose stories I hope to better understand in more detail in a second season. More than Wu’s Sunny, more than the avatars, even more than my man Cung Le, it was Emily Beecham’s show-stopping performance as The Widow that locked me in.
After last week’s episode ramped up the stakes for our heroes, we headed into the first season finale with a lot of questions that needed answers. Who poisoned Jade? Will Quinn take advantage of M.K.’s gifts? Will Sunny turn on his young apprentice to secure passage on the River King’s ship? Did the Widow survive her duel with Sunny? Will Veil blame Sunny for the death of her parents? Will the show come back for a second season? And why are there only six episodes for the season?
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Bloody Barons”
Continuing our recap catch up, the penultimate episode of Into the Badlands was clearly the most interesting of the season. And that’s too bad because after this weekend’s season finale, we don’t know if AMC will be bringing the show back for a second one. We hope so since all the pieces are finally in place for an epic showdown between good, evil, and everything in between.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: The Butterfly Effect”
Last night’s Into the Badlands — clunkily titled “Two Tigers Subdue Dragons” and not to be confused with this — was tasked with propelling us into the end of the season. In addition to a promised Baron v Baron showdown, the episode was the first to effectively use an episode-ending cliffhanger to guarantee viewers will tune in for the final two entries of its debut season. But did it deliver?
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Warriors vs. Clippers”
The third episode of Into the Badlands — “White Stork Spreads Wings” — will be the last one to follow The Walking Dead since last night was the mid-season finale for everyone’s favorite zombie show. How Badlands will fare without its massive lead-in will be a question to be answered next week. If this episode is any indication, viewers should be coming back in full force even without a zombie pre-show.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: Who Run the World? Girls!”
For obvious reasons, we’ve been riding the Into the Badlands train from jump, and now that it’s here — and a huge hit — we couldn’t wait to add the show to the Recap rotation. We’ve been holding on to this one for a while too, since we got an early look at episode two a few months ago. As much as I dug the pilot, I always thought the second episode was where the series was going to take off with audiences. And if nerd twitter was any indication Sunday night, everyone else agreed.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: #WheresWidow”
by Lynn Chen | Originally posted at The Actor’s Diet
Oh, how I love when my fellow actors post photos of food, especially when they’re on set. The yumminess below is from Daniel Wu’s Instagram feed, most of them captured in New Orleans while he was filming Into the Badlands, a martial arts TV show very loosely based on the classic Chinese tale, “Journey to the West.”
Originally posted at Angry Asian Man
As we near the end of 2015, one thing is for sure: it’s a great time to be an Asian American television consumer. For the first time in history, you’ll need two hands to count the number of major television programs to feature Asian American leads! On ABC alone, you have shows like Fresh of the Boat, Dr. Ken, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and Quantico.
This Sunday night, the biggest network of them all — AMC — throws its hat into the ring with Into the Badlands, a dystopian martial arts drama starring Daniel Wu. And I can safely say the show is unlike anything you’ve ever seen before.
Continue reading “NOC Recaps Into the Badlands: The Time is Now”
We’ve been gearing up all week for the debut of Into the Badlands this Sunday night after an all-new episode of The Walking Dead. Yesterday, we re-posted Timothy Tau’s Hyphen interview with star Daniel Wu. I also had a chance to briefly talk with the Hong Kong movie icon about martial arts and stereotypes, but more importantly, we’re teaming up with AMC to giveaway some really cool Into the Badlands goodies.
Continue reading “Follow the N.O.C. to Win Into the Badlands Swag”
by Timothy Tau | Originally posted on Hyphen
Daniel Wu is a Chinese American actor/director/writer/producer that has already had quite an impressive career overseas in Hong Kong, appearing in over 60 films there — many of them box-office hits — and also winning awards for his directing, producing and performance work (such as the “Best New Director Award” at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his directorial debut The Heavenly Kings in 2006, which he also wrote, produced and starred in, and a Golden Horse Award for “Best Supporting Actor” in Jackie Chan’s New Police Story in 2004. He will also be starring in Duncan Jones’ Warcraft movie in 2016.
Wu breaks into American TV airwaves on Sunday, November 15th (at 10/9c) with the debut of AMC’s Into The Badlands, which has been receiving buzz as a hotly-anticipated new martial arts drama/action television show featuring not just one but two Asian American leads — Aramis Knight, a young actor of Pakistani and East Indian descent, also plays supporting character M.K. alongside Wu’s main protagonist Sunny. In this interview, readers will appreciate Wu’s illuminating answers, in-depth insight no doubt informed by seasoned experience and hard-won achievements on both sides of the Pacific.
This essay contains spoilers for both the television series and the comic book.
I don’t have cable. So I usually have to wait until the day after to watch The Walking Dead. As luck would have it, I’m in a cheap hotel with complementary AMC with my daughter when the episode “Thank You” airs. Six years old, my daughter is in the bath and complains about the sound from my television show — the two things that she fears the most, while awake and in her nightmares, are racists and zombies. Our compromise is that I turn the sound down and the captions on. And then I watch one of my favorite characters in pop culture get deluged in zombie claws, teeth, blood and guts.
Continue reading “Now or Later: We’ll Need to Deal with That Death on The Walking Dead“
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t watched through Episode 6 this season, there are some character revelations and minor plot twists revealed, but ostensibly nothing that would alter anyone’s viewing of the show.
AMC’s Hell on Wheels entered its fifth and final season this summer with seven episodes scheduled to finish in 2015 and seven more in 2016 to close it out. The show follows a former Confederate solider, Cullen Bohannon (Anson Mount), as he reconciles his dark past while becoming a key player in the race to build the Transcontinental Railroad.
Admittedly, I have never been a regular viewer of the show. I only tuned in for this season after hearing that Hell would finally include Chinese railroad workers as part of its story; and not without some healthy skepticism. Chinese workers have been mostly glossed over in mainstream media depictions of the western frontier and they got the same treatment through Hell‘s first four seasons. While the show’s creators Joe and Tony Gayton gave practical reasons as to why this happened, the chances of whether the Chinese would ever be included on the show seemed less promising with each passing season.
Season Five, however, has been worth the wait.
Continue reading “Hell on Wheels: Chinamen, The Final Frontier”
It’s hard to believe it’s already been a week since Comic-Con started, but here we are in that post-Con daze, and I’m still recovering. While I might need some more time before getting back into regularly scheduled posting, I didn’t want to leave before I comment on a couple of the trailers that came out of SDCC. No, not this one or that one. Instead, I want to focus on the early looks that came out of the AMC presentations and how the network is kicking off the post-Don Draper era by seemingly embracing diversity in the casts of its newest shows.
Continue reading “Is AMC Finally Embracing Diversity This Fall?”
