AAPI actors

Tag Archive: AAPI actors

Fistful of Vengeance–Netflix’s Wu Assassins series finds its sequel as action movie

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January 23, 2022

One of the Top 10 fantasy television series of the past decade is getting a sequel. As with Firefly, that sequel is coming in the form of a major motion picture. The series was Netflix’s 2019 wuxia series Wu Assassins, and the sequel is Fistful of Vengeance. International world martial arts champ Iko Uwais returns as the chef tapped with the supernatural powers of 1,000 monks, along with series co-star Lewis Tan (Mortal Kombat). Wu Assassins made other action franchises pale in comparison, mixing the best choreographed fight sequences with visual effects, humor, actors we want to see more of. That Chuck Norris-esque movie title doesn’t hurt either. Check out the trailer for Netflix’s Fistful of Vengeance below.

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Tags: AAPI actors, AAPI creators, Fistful of Vengeance, Fistful of Vengeance movie trailer preview, Fistful of Vengeance official movie poster, Iko Uwais, Juju Chan, Juju Chan Szeto, Lawrence Kao, Lewis Tan, martial arts movies, movies set in San Francisco, Netflix, Roel Reiné, The Expendables 4, Wu Assassins, Wu Assassins season 2, Wu Assassins sequel, wuxia

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Mortal Kombat–An above-average reboot in the video game adaptation genre

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December 1, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

At one level you know exactly what to expect when you select a movie based on a video game. Any film worth its production costs needs to bring general audiences into the world, the director and writers need to then build that world, establish heroes, fight battles, provide over-the-top action and effects, and the hero(es) must achieve some kind of goal. The stakes are high, often the fate of the entire world. And that rarely leaves room for character development. Entries include Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil, Warcraft, Monster Hunter, Prince of Persia, Rampage, Sonic the Hedgehog, and a slew of Pokémon movies, and they go back decades to the original concept film Tron, which had a video game at its center that players didn’t get to play until after the movie. Lesser rated entries include movies like Hitman, Max Payne, Doom, Street Fighter, and In the Name of the King.

This year’s big-budget release Mortal Kombat, both a remake and a reboot and adaptation of a series of martial arts fantasy games going back to 1992, leans heavily into Asian action movie culture. It arrives in a growing marketplace for API and AAPI films, in a year including Raya and the Last Dragon, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins.

So where does Mortal Kombat land in comparison?

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Powerful, fun, epic fantasy Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings arrives on Disney+

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November 14, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

As much as any movie has been able to keep its secrets in the past few years, it’s hard to beat the surprises in the epic fantasy film Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the first film of Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe without an Avengers headliner. And when I say fantasy, I mean it–it’s got it all, a combination of the magical realm of Doctor Strange, the ancient, secret country hidden from the rest of the world like Black Panther, a mix of Asian lore, Shakespearean family squabbles (including a famous, Oscar-winning Shakespearean actor), and a plot–and dragons–right out of The Lord of the Rings (after all, Ten Rings are better than One Ring, right?). It has action, it has ties to the old and new, and, thanks to co-star Awkwafina, it’s the laugh-out-loud funniest of all the Marvel movies. And it’s finally arrived on Disney+ so mass audiences still staying away from movie theaters finally have a chance to see what they missed.

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Snowpiercer: The Art and Making of the Film–A good diversion from one hot summer

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September 9, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

Three things should get you to take a second look at both the 2013 movie Snowpiercer and the new behind the scenes book Snowpiercer: The Art and Making of the Film, just released from Titan Books. First, it’s been a really hot summer almost everywhere and the movie is all about freezing cold temps. Second, everyone loves Chris Evans, and it’s time to revisit his work outside of the supersuit and shield. Third, after winning three Oscars in 2020, for Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Picture, everyone should also go back and revisit the works of Korean director Bong Joon-ho. After the film suffered a long and clunky path to theaters thanks to the Weinstein scandal, the end result–even if it was far removed from its source material–was an interesting action movie, notable for actor Song Kang-ho, too. It’s been seven years since Snowpiercer, the highly, almost ludicrously improbable story of a train carrying the last humans on Earth akin to Noah’s Ark, finally arrived in wide release (see my review here), but now it gets a thorough investigation in Snowpiercer: The Art and Making of the Film, which was also delayed, this time for the COVID-19 pandemic. In the intervening years a prequel tie-in TV series took off. For all the above reasons, it’s a good time to hunker down and take a look at this book and its one-of-a-kind vision.

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Who is Shang-Chi and what are the Ten Rings? A deeper look, and missed opportunities promoting superhero movies

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August 1, 2021

“Why are they advertising that Suicide Squad movie now? Didn’t it come out 5 years ago?”

A major gap in the now enormous industry of producing nine-figure, blockbuster superhero movies is that the movie studios are missing an opportunity to retain audiences. No doubt more than half of the audience for Avengers: Endgame, which earned nearly $2.8 billion at the box office, was from moviegoers that were merely passing fans of the MCU. Maybe they accompanied a spouse or a kid to the movie. Most probably had never read a comic book before or since. Studios today assume audiences will just show up for the spectacle. But are they right? Take the trailers for competing superhero movie studio DC Entertainment’s The Suicide Squad. Nothing in the movie trailers–the only glimpse most prospective moviegoers will see via their TVs–explains why there is another movie called The Suicide Squad. Do they think most TV viewers catching the commercial notice the addition of the “The” in the title? Do they assume everyone still reads a newspaper or online entertainment source and is going to make an effort to understand that this new movie is different than the universally panned Suicide Squad of 2016? Do they really think most prospective movie ticket buyers know or care who the director is?

Which is why it’s refreshing, and a wise move, to see Kevin Feige, mastermind behind all the Marvel Cinematic Universe, discussing the background for the latest new Marvel superhero in a new short feature clip for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

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New trailer reveals more action in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

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June 25, 2021

We got our first peek at Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings here at borg this past April. The new, full-length trailer reveals a plot that has the feel of Wu Assassins, and only a few days since the Snake Eyes trailers, with Raya and the Last Dragon in theaters and on video, and a new Kung Fu series airing on TV, audiences are getting new opportunities to watch AAPI actors shine. While you’re in the vibe, don’t miss the live-action Mulan, the historical horror zombie series Kingdom, the action movie The Night Comes for Us, the fantasy wuxia series Legend of the Condor Heroes, the animated movie Over the Moon, the supernatural graphic novel Ghost Tree and Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo, the overview of martial arts in the movies in Iron Fists and King Fu Kicks, and the Bruce Lee documentary Be Water. Long-time comics readers will know Shang-Chi as the Master of Kung Fu from the pages of 1970s Marvel Comics by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. Originally the son of Fu Manchu, the character was an attempt by Marvel to create a monthly like the Kung Fu TV series after they failed in their bid to get the adaptation rights.

Check out the new trailer below for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:

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Raya and the Last Dragon–Disney’s best animated feature yet arrives on early-access home video

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May 20, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

Raya and the Last Dragon is the first animated movie created during the pandemic, with 900 creators working together to make a full-scale feature film from home. The result is the best Disney animated film to date, filled with a great story combining all sorts of fantasy tropes, great visual action, exciting characters, good humor, blending historic themes with modern ideas and characters. The entirely computer animated film also sports three strong female lead characters and is backed by an all female technical leadership team. The result is a movie blending elements of Asian culture on par with Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind with the action of Raiders of the Lost Ark and the fantastical elements of The Lord of the Rings. Count Raya and the Last Dragon among the creative works that shine brightly despite the adverse conditions of 2020.

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Make Mine More Marvel–At last a first look at Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings

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April 20, 2021

Phase IV of the Marvel Cinematic Universe took center stage with some big reveals at a Disney investor event last year. Since then it’s all been about shuffling release dates. In the interim Disney+ has launched both WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with Black Widow now scheduled for arrival July 9, 2021, which was when we’d initially expected to see the premiere of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Probably the most unexpected of the forthcoming movies from Marvel, this is another film where we expect to find, as with Guardians of the Galaxy, a new access point to the Marvel superheroes for a new generation of movie audiences. Along with a new poster, now we have our first teaser trailer.

Long-time comics readers will know Shang-Chi as the Master of Kung Fu from the pages of 1970s Marvel Comics by Steve Englehart and Jim Starlin. Originally the son of Fu Manchu, the character was an attempt by Marvel to create a monthly like the Kung Fu TV series after they failed in their bid to get the adaptation rights. And everyone knew visually he was based on Bruce Lee. In the new film Shang-Chi is played by Canadian actor Simu Liu (Orphan Black, Warehouse 13), comedian and comedic actor Awkwafina (Nora from Queens, Jumanji: The Next Level) plays his friend Katy, Tony Chiu-Wai Leung (Once Upon a Time in Hong Kong, Forced Vengeance) as The Mandarin, Michelle Yeoh (Star Trek Discovery, Guardians of the Galaxy 2) is Jiang Li, Florian Munteano (Creed 2) as a new cyborg, and Ronny Chieng (Godzilla vs Kong, Crazy Rich Asians) as Shang-Chi’s friend Jon-Jon.

Wait no longer! Here’s the first look at Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings:

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Kung Fu kicks into high gear with action and fun in first episode

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April 8, 2021

Review by C.J. Bunce

Put away what you remember (if anything) about the 1970s Kung Fu television series. You didn’t really watch the series for David Carradine, did you? If you were like most of the viewers, you probably showed up for the martial arts. CW Network’s new reboot of Kung Fu is for that same audience, but it also casts a wider net. Wednesday night Olivia Liang showed up to take the new series, CW’s Kung Fu, by storm. You can compare it to the similar-vibed, live-action Mulan, some of your favorite recent martial arts series that have the same dramatic beats like Wu Assassins, or you can compare it to series like Charmed, Smallville, Stargirl, or Riverdale. Fans of all these shows will get a kick out of the ease at which the CW has brought a young Chinese-American hero into our must-watch DVR queue with college student-turned-Shaolin warrior Nicky Shen. She’s a completely modern, updated Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and she brings with her an interesting supporting cast while pulling some intrigue into the story via elements of classic Chinese mythology and history. It’s fantasy, and its supernatural, and there’s swinging kicks and swordplay you’re not going to want to miss.

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CW reboots 1970s Kung Fu, with a new warrior battling crime on the streets of San Francisco

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March 26, 2021

When you can take the affidavit from my hand, you are ready.

Not everything gets done right the first time. Take the 1970s television series Kung Fu. Based at least in part on an idea from martial arts legend Bruce Lee, the series was the #1 show in the U.S. in 1973. But casting David Carradine over Lee seems nothing short of lunacy in hindsight. While Lee’s heirs later continued his vision in Cinemax’s The Warrior, the series that became Kung Fu is getting a reboot, a re-imagining, or a redo next month as Olivia Liang takes the lead role as Nicky Shen in CW’s Kung Fu. Well-timed to follow the success of the similar-vibed live-action Mulan and some of our favorite recent martial arts series like Wu Assassins, the series follows a Chinese American college student who travels to China and is taken under the wing of a Shaolin master. She returns to San Francisco with a new purpose. Nicky looks like a superheroine in the first trailers for the series, which makes the CW network of Arrowverse fame a good place to air the series. The new series also seems to have the slow-motion martial arts effects the original Kung Fu was known for (the same later used in the Six Million Dollar Man).