The first season of Cinemax’s hit series, Warrior, premiered last April to the benefit of a highly thrilled viewing audience, introducing martial arts fans to a contemporary vision of a kung fu Western once birthed in the mind of film legend, Bruce Lee.
Host to an epic, layered world of triads, corrupt politicians and police caught in the middle in the battleground of 1870s San Francisco, that legacy continued with the second season premiere reintroducing Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji), brought back into the throes of the Hop Wei gang after redeeming himself post-defeat at the hands of Long Zii enforcer, Li Yong (Joe Taslim).
Pit fighting at the Barbary Coast where he befriends ringleader Rosalita Vega (Maria Elena Laas), Ah Sahm is left coming to terms with his defeat on his own accord. In addition, there’s also the betrayal and abandonment of being ostracized earlier on by Hop Wei boss, Father Jun (Perry Yung) for losing to the Long Zii matriarch, Mai Ling (Dianne Doan), a loss which sets the current precedent for territorial business in Chinatown.
Unsettled by the lack of growth and progress by the new map, Young Jun (Jason Tobin) is left unsettled by the recent slowdown of business due to the competition, putting him at an impasse with his father. Meanwhile, when Ah Sahm isn’t throwing down with big and burly tough guys in a darkly-lit and crowded, fight pit, or warring with other rivaling gangsters alongside his fellow Hop Wei, Ah Sahm can also be seen going on vigilante killing sprees against disagreeable and unsavory racist whites, joined by Madame Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng) and her mute, pugilistically gifted prospect, former peasant girl-turned-assassin, Lai (Jenny Ayumi Umbhau).
Adding to the friction is the continued travails of Officer “Big Bill” O’Hara (Kieran Bew) who’s since been forced to loanshark for Fung Hai leader Zing (Dustin Nguyen) following the events of season one, while partnern the forensics-inclined Officer Richard Lee (Tom Weston-Jones) starts to showcase a more inpatient tone in place of his normal reserve. Taking notice of the uptick in dead bodies, the two are pressured into taking action, which, to say the least, puts black marketeer and gangland middleman Wang Chao (Hoon Lee) in an otherwise tight spot opposite Ah Toy.
Pivotal to San Francisco backdrop is the ongoing political decay with the ever devious Mayor Samuel Blake (Christian McKay) and Deputy Mayor Buckley (Langley Kirkwood), while Blake’s wife, Penelope (Joanna Vanderham), presses on to find her footing as the manager of her late industrialist father’s factory, which previously erupted a battleground between Chinese laborers, and the jilted local Irish union, led by the strongarming mob boss and ex-soldier, Dylan Leary (Dean Jagger), who emerges in season two with an absolute bang, to say the least.
Creators Jonathan Tropper, Shannon Lee and Justin Lin continue to immense work with this series, never losing their touch when it comes to the pacing, tone and delivery of these characters, as well as the action, smartly crafted and presented by Brett Chan (Marco Polo) and his team. Tropper directed the first episode for this season, and as such, gets things off to a palpable and thrilling start with our character favorites, along with the introduction of a few new faces to the fray, namely the aforementioned Laas as Vega, and actress Cèline Buckens as Penelope’s carefree younger sister, Sophie.
The real sweetner is, of course, the action, and with at least nine more episodes to go for season two, if this first hour is any hint, you can expect nothing short of the excitement of season one to come back tenfold. The storied action extends even further in the first episode from Ah Sahm’s introspective arc, as he, Ah Toy and Lai wage war on gangs called Teddy Boys (a brilliant nod to a certain hate group in America these days) who harrass and murder innocent Chinese for fun. The most fun here is finally getting to see Lai come into herself a little more, gracing the room with a devious smile before slicing a Teddy Boy’s throat and eventually launching a Ninja Gaiden-style aerial assault on another grunt already fleeing the scene with a hand missing.
The big showstoppers, of course, are yet to come full circle, with actor Chen Tong still yet to appear, and at least nine more episodes on approach as we wait for the biggest battles and rematches to come, including that of the bitter rivalry between Ah Sahm and Leary following the season one finale.
Warrior is possibly the smartest decision any television producer has ever made, as it does some of the most long-awaited justice for its famed originator, on top of being one of the best action dramas ever to be broadcast in recent memory, and it’s hard to believe there will ever be a show like it. For this, it’s difficult to process the idea that this show may possibly come to a close now that Cinemax is no longer in the business of original content production.
Would it be mundane or pointless to hope that somewhere someone is taking notice and helping this series remain on track to the kind of Game Of Thrones-level greatness its fans are hoping for? Only time will tell. For now, it’s no stretch to assert that season two of this series will be worth endulging every last second of until further notice, and if you’re somehow new to this series after a year, it’s not too late to catch right now.
Stream season one on Google Movies & TV or Amazon, or buy season one on combo pack at Amazon. For season two, check your local listings.