Wu Assassins: Season 1 (Full Season)
August 11, 2019 7:37 AM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe
Yesterday, he dreamed of owning a food truck.Today, he's humanity's last hope. He's the Chosen One -- and the last hero of his kind. (Netflix Original)
This is scratching my "crap, why did Into the Badlands get canceled" itch, but it's not as good as that series was, IMO.
It can still stay and be Friend. I do definitely find the whole Wu storyline hella confusing, but I'm still hoping it gets renewed for a second season.
I'm mostly staying for the ITB alumni involved with the show, but hopeful the (terrible dialogue, terrible writing) kinks can get worked out so I'm not tempted just to fast-forward directly to the fight scenes.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 10:36 AM on August 13, 2019
It can still stay and be Friend. I do definitely find the whole Wu storyline hella confusing, but I'm still hoping it gets renewed for a second season.
I'm mostly staying for the ITB alumni involved with the show, but hopeful the (terrible dialogue, terrible writing) kinks can get worked out so I'm not tempted just to fast-forward directly to the fight scenes.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 10:36 AM on August 13, 2019
I continue to have almost no regrets whatsoever in regards to my interaction with this series. The fight scenes are good, and everything else is so bad it's good, the dialogue, the weird complexity, etc.
posted by zeek321 at 10:45 AM on August 13, 2019
posted by zeek321 at 10:45 AM on August 13, 2019
I've watched 3 episodes and I am enjoying it. the fight scenes are great, and the story is interesting even if the dialogue is awful. some of the acting is pretty good (Jenny is carrying every scene she's in) but a lot of it is downright painful, yet it still manages to be fun .
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:10 AM on August 13, 2019
posted by OHenryPacey at 11:10 AM on August 13, 2019
Just finished last night. The fighting really is top notch. I was glad the ending had more fights than dialog overall, or at least it felt that way.
It did feel like the last 2 episodes were very rushed. We didn't get into the current Water Wu and her past, and the Metal Wu being just a run of the mill jackass who came into power was pretty one-dimensional. But yay Summer Glau!
Most of the acting is indeed terrible, but the few Hollywood veterans helped it to be tolerable, like Li Jun Li, Byron Mann and of course, Tommy Flanagan.
I was a little sad that Uncle Six didn't survive, and I guess we'll see more of Zan next season.
The mythology felt incomplete, but I think that's to give more content to upcoming seasons, so I'm not too worried.
posted by numaner at 11:32 AM on August 16, 2019
It did feel like the last 2 episodes were very rushed. We didn't get into the current Water Wu and her past, and the Metal Wu being just a run of the mill jackass who came into power was pretty one-dimensional. But yay Summer Glau!
Most of the acting is indeed terrible, but the few Hollywood veterans helped it to be tolerable, like Li Jun Li, Byron Mann and of course, Tommy Flanagan.
I was a little sad that Uncle Six didn't survive, and I guess we'll see more of Zan next season.
The mythology felt incomplete, but I think that's to give more content to upcoming seasons, so I'm not too worried.
posted by numaner at 11:32 AM on August 16, 2019
Decider - Stream It Or Skip It
Review: Fight scenes are the only bright spot in grim, joyless Wu Assassins -- Seriously, just fast-forward through all the silly plot holes and leaden dialogue. (Jennifer Ouellette for Ars Technica)
I made it through the first episode and bailed. If you're looking for a martial arts spectacular series, Warrior (FanFare, where I tried to keep spoilers from the blurbs) is fantastic. With that show as a frame of reference, Wu Assassins is hokey, which makes me sad. I'll echo the Ars Technica reviewer: "It's such a shame, because there is enough here in terms of a potentially rich mythology to get a sense for the show this might have been."
I might try to watch the rest of this, and focus on the fight scenes.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:07 PM on August 20, 2019
Review: Fight scenes are the only bright spot in grim, joyless Wu Assassins -- Seriously, just fast-forward through all the silly plot holes and leaden dialogue. (Jennifer Ouellette for Ars Technica)
I made it through the first episode and bailed. If you're looking for a martial arts spectacular series, Warrior (FanFare, where I tried to keep spoilers from the blurbs) is fantastic. With that show as a frame of reference, Wu Assassins is hokey, which makes me sad. I'll echo the Ars Technica reviewer: "It's such a shame, because there is enough here in terms of a potentially rich mythology to get a sense for the show this might have been."
I might try to watch the rest of this, and focus on the fight scenes.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:07 PM on August 20, 2019
I finally finished and yeah, it's just a shame about how many amateurish elements brought it down.
It's not like there isn't a template for a story like this. 5 elementals -- well, they each deserve an arc, so the protagonist has to either fight them individually, or, as these stories go, he screws that up and uh oh, they gather together and now he's got a bigger problem. Big "Boss" battle at the end!
One season is probably not enough to tell that type of story, especially if you want to go all GRRM and subvert some tropes, or make one of the elementals somehow a sympathetic character, or an ally of the assassin.
So beyond the ham-fisted dialogue, the entire season long plot was waaaaaaay too rushed for 10 episodes.
They seemed to spend a bunch of budget on music and flashy effects, and tried really hard to have some Tarantino-esque set pieces, but that stuff really couldn't overcome how choppy the writing made almost all of the scenes in between the fights.
IN better hands this could have been really fun. I guess I had enough fun to make it through, but even the ending was sooooo awkward (I won't spoil it in case anyone else makes it that far , but boy, it's...well...) that I wonder if it will get picked up for a 2nd season.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:06 AM on August 24, 2019
It's not like there isn't a template for a story like this. 5 elementals -- well, they each deserve an arc, so the protagonist has to either fight them individually, or, as these stories go, he screws that up and uh oh, they gather together and now he's got a bigger problem. Big "Boss" battle at the end!
One season is probably not enough to tell that type of story, especially if you want to go all GRRM and subvert some tropes, or make one of the elementals somehow a sympathetic character, or an ally of the assassin.
So beyond the ham-fisted dialogue, the entire season long plot was waaaaaaay too rushed for 10 episodes.
They seemed to spend a bunch of budget on music and flashy effects, and tried really hard to have some Tarantino-esque set pieces, but that stuff really couldn't overcome how choppy the writing made almost all of the scenes in between the fights.
IN better hands this could have been really fun. I guess I had enough fun to make it through, but even the ending was sooooo awkward (I won't spoil it in case anyone else makes it that far , but boy, it's...well...) that I wonder if it will get picked up for a 2nd season.
posted by OHenryPacey at 9:06 AM on August 24, 2019
Yeah, you'd think this would be right up my alley, but I just lost interest about halfway through, for the reasons everyone else did. (I think what really killed it for me was all the ManPain "Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!" flashback stuff from the Wood guy (Tommy Flanagan)).
But the writing was bad, the balance between the family/interpersonal drama & the Wu-woo was lousy,
The really annoying thing about that is that Iko Uwais is actually a really good actor with just facial expressions and body language - see The Raid:Redemption - so all that clunky dialog in service of dragging out all that family drama stuff was just unnecessary.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:12 PM on August 30, 2019
But the writing was bad, the balance between the family/interpersonal drama & the Wu-woo was lousy,
The really annoying thing about that is that Iko Uwais is actually a really good actor with just facial expressions and body language - see The Raid:Redemption - so all that clunky dialog in service of dragging out all that family drama stuff was just unnecessary.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:12 PM on August 30, 2019
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posted by oh yeah! at 8:53 AM on August 11, 2019 [2 favorites]