TV reviews

Available on Netflix

Netflix is in a bit of bind these days. It’s not getting as many new subscribers as it used to, it’s got a bucket-load of debt and this year, it’s failed to come up with any top-notch new TV shows, with Russian Doll the only one seeing any real break-out success.

This wouldn’t be as big a problem were it not for the arrival of new streaming services from Disney and Warner Bros, which are stripping Netflix of its existing content and halting previous production deals. The most notable results of this so far are the cancellations of various Marvel superhero shows: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Iron Fist and The Punisher. These were among Netflix’s biggest initial draws and in their own ways, solidified Netflix’s ‘quality’ branding in the same vein as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black.

So what’s Netflix to do to produce new content, stave off the competition and bring in new subscribers? Well, in the case of filling the hole left by Iron Fist, at least, it’s to come up with its own version: Wu Assassins.

Woke Iron Fist

Now, Iron Fist faced a lot of criticism – mainly from delusional haters, oh yes – on various grounds: its lead character was a billionaire white boy who went around lecturing Asians on the martial arts; its fight scenes weren’t very good; and its plot wasn’t very inspiring.

So Wu Assassins feels like Netflix learning its lessons from Iron Fist’s mistakes in wokeness. For starters, it stars one of the world’s best martial arts stars: The Raid’s Iko Uwais, who plays a half-Chinese, half-Indonesian immigrant to the US, whose father died on the journey over to San Francisco. Adopted by gangster ‘Uncle Six’ (Byron Mann), Uwais grows up to become… a lowly cook. Just like Steven Seagal. Because he’s got inexplicably good Indonesian fight moves for a cook.

All the same, his life seems perfectly normal until he’s chosen by spirit girl Celia Au (Lodge 49) to receive a magically endowed dragon’s chi tortoise shell to become the latest – and last – in a long line of immortal Iron Fists ‘Wu Assassins’. They’re pledged to protect the world from the Handfive Wu – evil elementals each with their own powers and followers, who could throw the Dao out of alignment and destroy the world.

To help him do this, she endows him with the powers and abilities of the Iron Fist1,000 monks, who gave their lives to stop the Wu. And only he can defeat this underground conspiracy… while dealing with all the issues brought about by his pseudo-father Harold Meachum Uncle Six and childhood friends Ward and Joy Meachum Jenny, Tommy and Lu Xin – with a bit of help from Colleen Wing Christine “CG” Gavin (Vikings‘ Katheryn Winnick), a woman who may not be what she seems

Will Uwais embrace the way of the Wu Assassin and stop the Wu? How many of his family and friends will be killed along the way? And will he prefer looking like himself of Mark Dacascos more?