Netflix is about to lose one of its most underrated series this month. On August 19, Into the Badlands will depart the streamer — and it’s a show that martial arts fans should be flocking to, as it boasts some of the best fight scenes on television. It also features a truly unique premise: 500 years in the future, the United States has transformed into a feudal state, lorded over by a series of “Barons”. Each one of these Barons commands a squad of “Clippers”, warriors who are skilled in hand-to-hand combat following the banning of firearms. One of these clippers, Sunny (Daniel Wu), finds his life upended when he encounters a young boy named M.K. (Aramis Knight), who possesses a mysterious yet destructive power that the other Barons want to weaponize. What follows is a martial arts epic that paved the way for shows like Warrior and Wu Assassins.
‘Into the Badlands’ Features Fight Choreography From A Living Legend
The very beginning of Into the Badlands features Sonny on a mission for his Baron, Quinn (Marton Csokas), until he encounters a gang of roaming nomads. What follows is the first of many bone-crunching, brutal fight scenes, as Sonny slowly beats down the nomads using nothing but his bare fists (or in one moment, using another of the nomads as an improvised weapon). It only escalates from there, as he has to fight other Clippers and Barons, each with their unique fighting style. The Baron known as “The Widow” (Emily Beachum) is a skilled swordswoman, while Quinn uses his brute strength and a longsword to cut down his foes. The reason why these fight scenes work is due to Stephen Fung serving as a director, executive producer, and choreographer on Into the Badlands. Fung’s worked with other martial arts masters like Shaolin Soccer‘s Stephen Chow, and he brings that experience to the small screen, making sure that each scene flows with the energy you’d see in a martial arts film.
It’s no easy task to put together fight scenes of Into the Badlands‘ caliber, though. Daniel Wu told GQ that he had to shoot close to a dozen fight scenes for Season 1 of Into the Badlands, which took four months to put together. ” I started training about six months out—I’d been keeping up with the martial arts all this time, two or three days a week—but it’s a very different prospect, doing two or three days a week for a couple hours, vs. twelve hours a day for four months, six days a week. I had to build myself up to that,” Wu said. All of the hard work paid off, as Into the Badlands gathered praise for its fight scenes; it currently holds 84% on Rotten Tomatoes.
The Creators of ‘Into the Badlands’ Gave Netflix One of Its Biggest Hits
Into the Badlands was the brainchild of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who will definitely sound familiar to fans of genre TV. The duo created multiple TV series that became major phenomena, like Smallville setting the ground for two decades’ worth of superhero shows on the CW, and Wednesday, one of the few Netflix shows to break into the upper echelon of streaming hits. Into the Badlands didn’t have such luck, as it had to deal with the smash success of The Walking Dead and a growing budget that led AMC to reconsider future seasons, according to Wu. But while it might not be as big of a hit as Gough and Millar’s other shows, Into the Badlands is still worth a watch due to its puply nature, not to mention fight scenes that showcase characters getting pummeled into a pulp.
