Verdict
Summary
Fans of martial arts will be just as satiated as hardcore purveyors of post-apocalyptic material and this Blu-ray is essential stuff.
Plot: A mighty warrior and a young boy search for enlightenment in a ruthless territory controlled by feudal barons.
Review: Centuries after the world was destroyed following a series of wars, civilization was rebuilt from the ground up by seven Barons who each govern stretches of land in America, namely the South. Each Baron has their cadre of “Clippers” – mercenary soldiers, samurais, ninjas, or assassins – who are at their beck and call. One such Clipper is a subservient of his Baron, the ruthless Quinn (Marton Csokas), who has developed a brain tumor that clearly marks him for a limited number of days before he’s usurped by his unruly son, untrustworthy wife, or any number of others who want him dead. The Clipper – a martial arts proficient samurai-type named Sunny (Daniel Wu) – finds that he finally has a crisis of conscience after years of servitude to his evil Baron, and when a mysterious boy named M.K. (Aramis Knight) arrives, bearing the sigil of a faraway land rumored to be free of feudal laws and infighting, Sunny must protect the boy in order to find redemption and a new path in life, as the boy has powers beyond imagining and a promise of things to come …
After a resurgence of post-apocalyptic T.V. shows yielded the likes of hit or miss shows like The Walking Dead, Defiance, Falling Skies, Terra Nova, 12 Monkeys, The 100, and Z Nation, along comes this fresh spin on the sort of thing we’re familiar with, but told a little differently with cinematic and elaborate martial arts sequences the likes of which have only been seen in big motion pictures. What’s interesting about Into the Badlands is that there are no guns of any kind to be seen, although automobiles still work (they’re scarce), and magic and mysticism is quietly prevalent. The plot of the show is nicely sustained through the first six episodes of the program, and the arc of the whole thing seems to rest on the teacher / pupil element between the characters Wu and Knight play. Bonus additions of having classy actors like Stephen Lang, Cung Le, and Lance Henriksen come in to do supporting roles really elevate the proceedings in a big way. Fans of martial arts will be just as satiated as hardcore purveyors of post-apocalyptic material. From creators Miles Millar and Alfred Gough, who both collaborated on another post-apocalyptic show concurrently, called The Shannara Chronicles.
Anchor Bay will be releasing the complete first season of Into the Badlands on Blu-ray, DVD, and digital HD on November 8th, and it comes packed with special features such as “Inside INTO THE BADLANDS,” “Anatomy of a fight,” “Building the world of INTO THE BADLANDS,” and much more.