ANDREW KOJI Exclusive Audio Interview Bruce Lee's legacy and WARRIOR Season 1 + 2
ANDREW KOJI talks about how he came to be cast as the lead Ah Sahm in the outstanding WARRIOR Series. How did he step into the Bruce Lee concept show? Did he incorporate elements of Bruce Lee's fighting style? Did Shannon Lee give him any ideas or guidance about her father Bruce Lee? How did he become an actor? How did he build on his acting to become an Action Actor? What is his martial arts training? Was his Taekwondo and Kung Fu actually useful? How do you fight someone like Michael Bisping the UFC LHW Champ? How do you stay fit and focussed in a 6 month filming schedule? How did he progress his character from Season 1 to 2?
WARRIOR is a gritty, action-packed crime drama set during the brutal Tong Wars of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the second half of the 19th century. The series follows Ah Sahm (Andrew Koji), a martial arts prodigy who emigrates from China to San Francisco under mysterious circumstances. After proving his worth as a fighter, Ah Sahm becomes a hatchet man for the Hope Wei, one of Chinatown’s most powerful tongs (Chinese organized crime family).Befriended by Wang Chao (Hoon Lee), a fixer and profiteer in Chinatown, Ah Sahm is taken under the wing of Young Jun (Jason Tobin), the hard-partying son of the Hop Wei’s leader, Father Jun (Perry Yung), who is facing an imminent opium war with a rival tong. As he is indoctrinated in the rules of Chinatown gangs, Ah Sahm wins the confidence of a canny brothel madam, Ah Toy (Olivia Cheng), revealing to her the true intentions of his journey to America.
The drama series WARRIOR begins its ten-episode season FRIDAY, APRIL 5 (10:00-11:00 p.m. ET/PT), exclusively on CINEMAX. Filmed in Cape Town, South Africa, the show is based on the writings of martial arts legend Bruce Lee and is created and executive produced by Jonathan Tropper (CINEMAX’s “Banshee”) under Tropper Ink Productions, executive produced by Justin Lin (director of “Fast & Furious 6”) for Perfect Storm Entertainment and executive produced by Shannon Lee for Bruce Lee Entertainment.
Later, in search of a woman who left China two years earlier, Ah Sahm crosses paths with Mai Ling (Dianne Doan) and Li Yong (Joe Taslim), followers of the rival tong leader Long Zii (Henry Yuk), who is trying to avoid an opium war with the Hop We – a war that Walter Buckley (Langley Kirkwood), deputy to San Francisco Mayor Samuel Blake (Christian McKay), actively promotes. Meanwhile, after two Chinese laborers are killed by white thugs, police sergeant “Big Bill” O’Hara (Kieran Bew) is tasked with creating a Chinatown squad. Enlisting southern-born cop Richard Henry Lee (Tom Weston-Jones), Bill soon finds that the hostility between the Chinese and white dock workers, whose unofficial leader is Irish tough Dylan Leary (Dean Jagger), is unlikely to end anytime soon.
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