‘Badlands’ a martial-arts drama with punch

Film critic Roger Ebert once wrote that “Fight scenes in a martial-arts movie are like song-anddance numbers in a musical: After a certain amount of dialogue, you’re ready for one.”

And so it is with “Into the Badlands,” a new samurai TV drama debuting Sunday on AMC.

Less than five minutes into the first episode, our leather-clad leading man, Daniel Wu, finds himself up against a group of scruffy thugs.

Instantly, swords are twirling like lawn mower blades, and blood is spurting all over the place as Wu performs lots of gravity-defying moves.

Naturally, he puts the beat-down on every dude he comes up against in the deftly choreographed, highly stylized sequence. His work done, it’s on to the next stretch of dialogue, followed by another rock-’emsock-’em fight scene. And so on and so on.

Yes, there is a story that comes with “Into the Badlands,” but it’s a simple one that often seems to be little more than a coat rack on which to hang action scenes. Inspired by the 16th-century Chinese novel “Journey to the West,” the show envisions a futuristic feudal society spread across what was once the American Midwest. This area is now called the Badlands, and it’s uneasily divided among seven iron-fisted Barons, each of whom is bolstered by loyal armies of trained assassins known as Clippers.

Wu plays Sunny, one of the deadliest Clippers around. He was a starving little orphan when he arrived at The Fort, the walled compound belonging to Baron Quinn (Marton Csokas), and, over the years, he swiftly rose through the ranks to become a merciless warrior with more than 400 kills to his name.

But as the body count rises and Sunny’s frustration with servitude grows, he meets M.K. (Aramis Knight), a teen boy who harbors a secret lethal power. Together they set out on a journey of enlightenment that just might lead to something much better beyond the Badlands.

AMC and series producers proudly point to the fact that “Into the Badlands” is the first martial-arts drama to come to prime time in ages. Unfortunately, their attempt to appeal to an underserved fan base results in something less than exceptional.

Wu does what he can, bringing a steely authority and mad kick-butt skills to the role. But the show is hampered by too many overly broad characters, genre cliches and the kind of groan-worthy dialogue that leaves one restless.

Ah, but at least those fullthrottle, over-the-top fight scenes are fun to watch. Each one is a dizzying, dazzling blend of athletic dexterity and visual poetry, and they get more insanely intricate as the show goes on.

If only “Into the Badlands” devoted as much creative vision and verve to its plot.

AMC Aramis Knight and Daniel Wu appear in a scene from the first episode of the new AMC series “Into the Badlands.”

AMC Daniel Wu portrays Sunny in AMC’s “Into the Badlands.”