The first episode of Netflix’s Wu Assassins opens with a kinetic, preposterous, thoroughly enjoyable Hong Kong cinema throwback fight scene set in a series of halls and stairwells. Railings are hurdled, bullets are dodged, people are pinned to walls with their own knives. It’s a ballet of violence set to over-carbonated electronic music, culminating with the hero snatching a thrown knife out of the air. “Who are you?” the man he’s rescued asks in wonder. “I’m a chef,” he quips. End scene, cue applause. It’s everything fans want in a retro martial arts flick.But after five minutes or so, it’s done — and then, alas, the plot kicks in.Wu Assassins Seasons 1 Download.
That plot manages to be both predictable and nonsensical. Aspiring chef Kai Jin (played by celebrated stuntman Iko Uwais) is trying to get his food-truck business off the ground while occasionally working at the restaurant of his romantic interest Jenny (Li Jun Li). Then he discovers he’s the heir to mystical martial arts powers. He must use them to defeat a bunch of villains with elemental magic, including his adoptive father, Uncle Six (Byron Mann), the leader of a criminal triad. In addition, the show desperately but ineffectually wants viewers to be interested in the undercover work of blond white cop C.G. (Katheryn Winnick) who’s trying to prevent a gang war between the triad and crime boss Alec McCullough (Tommy Flanagan).
Genre fans of various flavors have seen this all before: the father / son tension between Kai and Uncle Six, the assassin who doesn’t want to be a killer, the magical visitor who tells the reluctant chosen one he’s chosen. Even the mystical out-of-time training sequences and visions of the future are so rote that they spark resigned acquiescence instead of wonder.