After Snake Eyes, Make Warrior Your Next Binge Watch

I’ll say this much for Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins: while not garnering the best reviews (it currently sits at 41% on Rotten Tomatoes), it at least had the good sense to stack its cast with excellent martial arts performers. In addition to The Raid and The Night Comes for Us alum Iko Uwais, the movie also provides a big-screen breakthrough for Andrew Koji who plays Tommy, the ally-turned-eventual adversary of Henry Golding’s protagonist.

If Koji’s name isn’t immediately recognizable, let this be your opportunity to fix that. He’s the star of Warrior, a martial arts western series based on an idea by Bruce Lee, and finally realized by Lee’s daughter Shannon and executive producers Jonathan Tropper and Justin Lin. HBO Max acquired the show from Cinemax last year, and renewed it for a third season in April. Whether Snake Eyes made you hungry for more action or left you wanting something better, there’s no time like the present to make this your next big binge.

Warrior takes place during San Francisco’s Tong Wars, a series of violent disputes between rival Chinese immigrant gangs in the late 19th Century. The show also covers Chinatown’s contentious relationship with the city’s Irish immigrant population, and everyone’s problems with San Francisco’s ruling class. Koji stars as Ah Sahm, who arrives in America looking for his estranged sister. He’s immediately picked up and inducted into the Hop Wei Tong, one of Chinatown’s most prominent factions. The sister he’s been searching for, Mai Ling (Dianne Doan), is part of the Long Zii Tong, the Hop Wei’s biggest rival. Ah Sahm uses his wits and insane fighting skills to work his way up through the ranks of the Hop Wei alongside Young Jun (Jason Tobin, recently seen shooting cars into space in F9), the son of the Tong’s leader.

At the same time, anti-Chinese sentiment in San Francisco is rising, thanks mostly to the city’s Irish immigrant population, who fear losing their jobs in favor of cheaper Chinese labor. The Irish community, headed up by bar owner/human boulder Dylan Leary (Dean Jagger), antagonizes the Chinese, while also spending money at their brothels and gambling parlors. The cops assigned to keep the Chinese immigrants safe don’t understand the community they’re policing, nor do they particularly care about their well-being. San Francisco’s mayor (Christian McKay) and his weaselly second-in-command (Langley Kirkwood) actively stir the pot with their own self-serving agendas.

Warrior contains a colorful, complicated ecosystem of hatchet men, cops, laborers, brothel owners, corrupt politicians and long-suffering wives. Ah Sahm, however, is the show’s charismatic, capable anchor. Koji gives him Clint Eastwood terseness, mixed with Bruce Lee’s showmanship and a dark sense of humor. This is a more complicated and nuanced take on the traditional martial arts hero (not to mention fun as hell), and Koji’s performance is so consistently impressive that it seems wildly unfair that it’s taken so long for him to show up in a big studio movie role.

Koji is also bolstered by a solid ensemble; one of the many gifts Warrior  gives its audience is a diverse cast in dynamic roles. Tobin’s Young Jun is a coiled spring of chaotic energy, both a great wingman and a complex character in his own right. Hoon Lee brings theatrical poise and cool detachment to weapons dealer Wang Chao, alternating allegiances with the subtlety of a dimmer switch while also navigating his own crisis of conscience. The Night Comes for Us and The Raid: Redemption’s Joe Taslim brings additional martial arts expertise to his role as Li Yong, a Long Zii lieutenant who squares off against Ah Sahm in perfectly matched battle.