See Lee’s vision and binge watch season 2 of Showmax’s Warrior

Cape Town doubles for a lawless 1870s San Francisco in the martial arts action series Warrior, which now has two seasons available to binge on Showmax.

Warrior is based on a concept that Bruce Lee pitched to Hollywood in 1971.

His pitch was unsuccessful – studio execs didn’t think they could sell an Asian leading man – and the legendary martial arts icon died two years later, his vision unfulfilled.

Lee’s daughter Shannon finally brought it to life in 2019, executive producing Warrior alongside the likes of The Fast and The Furious director Justin Lin and series creator Jonathan Tropper of action drama Banshee fame.

Set during the Californian Tong Wars of the 1800s, the story centres on Chinese immigrant and martial arts prodigy Ah Sahm, who goes to San Francisco to search for his sister, only to find himself sold to one of the most powerful tongs (gangs) in Chinatown.

Season 2 has a 100% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and was up for Best Action Series and Best Actor at the 2021 Critics Choice Super Awards, as well as for a 2021 Visual Effects Society Award.

Inverse hailed Warrior as “the most underrated action series of the century”, while Vox proclaimed, “Warrior feels like if Peaky Blinders starred Bruce Lee and was set in 1870s Chinatown. It’s great”.

Andrew Koji (Fast and Furious 6) leads the ensemble cast as Ah

Sahm, the role Bruce Lee envisioned for himself.

Olivia Cheng (The Stand, Deadly Class), Jason Tobin (The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and the upcoming Fast & Furious 9), Dianne Doan (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Good Trouble, Vikings) and Hoon Lee (Banshee, Bosch, Mulan) also star, along with South African Langley Kirkwood (Inconceivable, The Mauritanian), whose role as the Machiavellian deputy mayor, Buckley, was highlighted as one of the show’s standout characters by The Ringer.

The South African cast also includes South African Film and Television Award nominees Robert Hobbs (The Girl From St Agnes, District 9) and Jacques Bessenger (Dwaalster, Krotoa,

Kanarie), Fleur du Cap winners Nicholas Pauling (Troy: Fall of a City, The Dark Tower) and Emily Child (Tali’s Baby Diary, The Pervert Laura), as well as David Butler (Serenity, Black Sails, Wild at Heart) and Kenneth Fok (Rogue, Five Fingers for Marseilles).

And HBO Max has renewed the show for a third season.

Lee welcomed the news, saying: “I just know that my father is grinning right now...”

– Citizen reporter

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Watch Warrior on Showmax: https://www. showmax.com/eng/tvseries/ bnb6ah2d-warrior