Into the Badlands - 'The Fort' and 'Fist Like a Bullet'

Left to Right: The Baron (Marton Csokas), The Baroness (Orla Bady), The Idiot Son (Oliver Stark), The Teenage Weapon (Aramis Knight), Sunny (Daniel Wu), The Doctor (Madeleine Mantock) and the Widow (Emily Beecham).

"The wars were so long ago nobody even remembers. Darkness and fear ruled until the time of the barons, seven men and women who forged order out of chaos. People flocked to them for protection. That protection became servitude. They banished guns and trained armies of lethal fighters they called Clippers. This world is built on blood. Nobody is innocent here. Welcome to the Badlands."

Into the Badlands is an ambitious action series, loosely (and I mean, really loosely) based on the Chinese classic Into the West (better known to Western audiences as the source for dubiously dubbed Japanese TV series Monkey!/Monkey Magic.) It is set in a post-apocalyptic future which blends the ethos of bushido with elements of Mad Max and a mix of pseudo-Oriental and almost Zoroesque Spanish-American visual styles. The Badlands - constituting the majority of the known world for most of the characters - is a vast expanse of territory controlled by the Barons and their Clippers. Baronial estates are worked by 'cogs' and supported by dependent townships, with nomad gangs travelling between territories and working for the highest bidder.

Sunny's on-screen body count reaches double figures by the end
of episode one, and probably the fifties in episode two. For
some reason, forty-five careers kills was earlier touted as
something impressive.

Sunny is the regent (chief clipper) of Baron Quinn's opium-producing estate, a ma of some principles, but ultimately loyal first and foremost to the hash code of the Clippers and to his Baron. Quinn is the most powerful of the Barons, but a paranoid and terminally ill despot who fears to turn over control to his son Ryder. He is supported by his wife Lydia and by Sunny's strength and counsel, but on the point of war with the Widow, a woman who murdered her husband to become Baron and who controls the oil industry. The contention between them is a little odd, seemingly arising from the Baron's dismissal of a woman in authority, despite the fact that we are told in the narration that some of the original barons were women. Similarly, it seems odd that society would regress to 19th century gender roles in the wake of war and disaster, but outside of the Widow's estate it seems all women are wives or chattels, and all the clippers are men.

Into this arena comes MK, a young orphan with a mysterious past. Seemingly hailing from outside the Badlands, he claims to know the way back, and possesses some strange power which turns him into a lethal engine of destruction when his blood is spilled. The Widow wants him for the latter, but Sunny sees a chance to send his lover, a young doctor named Veil, and the unborn child they aren't supposed to have to safety as the Baron grows more and more ruthless (including murdering Veil's parents, his long-trusted physicians, simply for knowing how sick he is.) He briefly escapes from the Baron, with Sunny's help, but after a run in with the Widow and her daughter Tilda (Ally Ioannides) interrupts an attempt on the lives of Sunny and Rider, allowing Sunny to take him on as his apprentice, to teach him enough to protect Veil.

Young love is, apparently, unavoidable, even in a show base on a book which
really doesn't feature any romance.

As of the end of episode 2, 'Fist Like a Bullet', the Widow is planning to move on the Baron, MK and Tilda have a little Romeo and Juliet action going on, and Sunny is laying plans for his family's escape. The Baron is also planning to marry a young woman named Jade (Emily Bolger, apparently he really goes for Irish women), his eighth wife, but we've not seen much of her yet.

The plot of Into the Badlands is nothing much to write home about, and the alleged parallel with Journey to the West not immediately obvious. I mean, I guess Sunny is Sun Wu Kong, but MK appears to be the Xuanzhang/Tripitaka analogue, which makes his depiction as a romantic lead and engine of unholy destruction especially weird, and does that mean the Baron is the Celestial Emperor? Buddha? It's also not clear who we're supposed to be rooting for, if anyone, as the Baron is clearly a dick and, although the aggressor, the Widow is at least pushing for some sort of gender equality, albeit by forcing her daughters to become killers.

Clearly not the most practical of shit-kicking outfits.

Where it scores far more highly, however, is in the action stakes. Sunny gets the lion's share of the action scenes, I'm guessing because Daniel Wu has martial arts chops (I don't know for sure, but he's done action roles for Jackie Chan and that doesn't usually suggest stunt doubles.) The other combat headliner is the Widow, but she does a lot of her killing shot from behind, so I suspect that much of that may be done by a stunt player who knows how to murder in heels. Each of the two episodes has two major set pieces: In 'The Fort' a roadside battle against a nomad gang, then an atmospheric, rain swept smackdown against a group of the Widow's clippers. In 'Fist Like a Bullet' we open with the Widow proving her chops against half a dozen nomad assassins, but the big number features Sunny taking on thirty-to-forty nomads in a multi-level warehouse fight. This series seriously loves its martial arts action, and so far, so do I.

It's not just punchy though. There are some dramatic stakes and an inventive take on the post-apocalyptic premise. The acting is all pretty good - MK and Tilda are a weak point, but in part because they've not been given much to do yet - and the aesthetics of the piece are gorgeous. I also like the juxtaposition of the grim setting with the bright, colonial palette.