Badlands’ Beecham regains her fighting form
The Widow ready to kick serious butt in second season of martial arts drama
Into the Badlands
Season 2 debuts Sunday, AMC
Front kick, back kick, roundhouse, a pair of swords rammed into the chest. The fight scenes in AMC’s martial arts drama Into the Badlands move at breakneck speed and are packed, literally, with breakneck action.
The series follows warrior Sunny (Daniel Wu) and a boy named M.K. (Aramis Knight) as they journey through dangerous feudal lands in a quest for enlightenment. As the show returns Sunday for its 10-episode second season, they’re separated, struggling and imprisoned in far-flung places.
Meanwhile, a fierce, flamehaired woman called The Widow is consolidating her power. She’s slitting necks with swords, jamming daggers into feet, hurling butterfly ninja stars at heads. And, she’s doing it in stilettos.
“It’s nice and unusual to see women fighting onscreen, doing martial arts,” says Emily Beecham, who plays the woman in black.
“My character comes into her own more this season and she’s taken more seriously. She rises to power. She has to rise to the challenge and doubts whether she can.”
The fights, they’re authentic. Mapped out by veteran Hong Kong choreographer Master Dee Dee Ku — a guy who’s worked with Uma Thurman for Kill Bill and Zhang Ziyi for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon — they don’t rely on special effects.
And Hong Kong star Stephen Fung directs the actors in combat, not stuntmen and stuntwomen.
Like the rest of the cast, Beecham underwent a five-week fight camp for season 1, which was set in the Deep South and filmed in New Orleans. For season 2, the post-apocalyptic kung-fu western trekked to Ireland and prepped actors with three weeks of intensive fight training.
In a large gym with white walls and a domed ceiling, large mats peppered the floor and apparatuses for working with wire rigging loomed high.
The actors were intense and unglamorous in black and grey workout wear; the women with hair swept back and TV makeup decidedly on hiatus.
A typical day lasted between six to eight hours, starting with 90 minutes of warm ups, and then moving on to yoga, stretches, functional strength conditioning, kettlebell work and training with a martial arts expert.
On a show where the female characters are just as strong — if not stronger — than the men, prep like this allows Beecham to kill it in onscreen, like in the season 1 bar scene in which she’s ambushed but takes out her rivals like a soccer mom taking out the recycling.
The Widow’s style is more graceful and elegant than Sunny ’s — she evades opponents with serpentine flair and attacks with violent precision.
Master Dee Dee’s choreography for her was inspired by Beecham’s own physical traits that emerged during training. Even The Widow’s tendency to use weapons in both hands is deliberate; in traditional Chinese martial arts, the use of double weapons is decidedly feminine.
While Beecham enjoyed her classes in badassery, she learned that sometimes one has to suffer for one’s craft.
“I had a few injuries, but we had physios on set and medics. I sprained my ankles and things like that. I got hit on the nose, which, fortunately, wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been,” she says, adding that this season she worked more with katana swords, known for their curved, single-edged blades.
This season also welcomes Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead) as Sunny’s new ally Bajie, who adds some levity to the action.
The Irish landscape lends a more cinematic feel, and the fights are more integrated into the story.
But for Beecham, much of the show’s draw remains the chance to kick butt. “I find fighting comes naturally to me and I enjoy it,” she says. “I would like to do more martial arts in the future. Maybe not in stilettos next time, but more martial arts.”