For the uninitiated, Wu Assassin is an action-packed series about a quiet chef, Kai Jin, who finds himself imbued with the power of 1,000 monks. He’s given the title of Wu Assassin and tasked to defeat five modern-day criminals who have received ancient powers. In a twist, one of these criminals is his father, a powerful Triad member.

The  Netflix series became a hit thanks to its action-packed martial arts sequences, the camaraderie between Kai Jin and his friend Lu Xin, plus the brother and sister act Jenny and Tommy Wah.

In the follow-up movie Wu Assassin: Fistful of Vengeance, Jenny is dead. And her brother Tommy, Kai Jin and Lu Xin are out to avenge her death. In the process, they realize their new enemy is an ancient threat armed with otherworldly powers.

If you watched the Wu Assassin series you may already have your own opinions of Tommy. Some see him as the weakest link of the group, a messed-up drug addict. But to Lawrence Kao, Tommy has more to offer.

“Tommy is just a very vulnerable character,” he says. “He’s trying his best. He wants attention, he wants people to know he exists. Because so many people started looking down on him in the first season, he started to believe he was less than other people.

“Because of that, he started doing drugs. He didn’t want to feel anything anymore. But Tommy does have a lot of heart; he loves his friends. He loves his family and he’s loyal to the close people around him.”

Lawrence Kao didn’t see much martial arts action in the first season – his character was mostly running errands for the Triad and succumbing to and fighting his addiction. But all that changes in Wu Assassins: Fistful of Vengeance – there’s plenty of martial arts fighting, with Tommy right in the middle of it.

“Tommy makes a huge jump from the first season to the movie. The basic story is about revenge. Tommy loved his sister Jenny so much, and something terrible happened to her. It propels Tommy to think about what’s important in his life.

“He wants to keep the people that are close to him, close. And he’s out to seek revenge. So we get to see the scrappy Tommy, but we also get to see him very physically capable.”

When it came to preparing for all the action scenes, Lawrence Kao and the other actors took their training seriously.

The movie was partially shot on location in Thailand, which gave the crew a chance to learn Muay Thai moves. Says Lawrence, “We got to Thailand maybe a month before shooting and got to train at a Muay Thai gym.  We learned all the choreography and trained pretty hard for it. We went in on this one – a lot of blood and sweat was put into this movie.”

But it wasn’t just the physical training that Lawrence focused on. To him, showing his character’s emotions during combat is equally as important as mastering the action choreography.

He shares why: “When you watch any kind of action scene… anybody can do the choreography. But it doesn’t look interesting until you can see the story in the fighting. So if the characters aren’t embodying what’s going on within themselves, then the action’s not going to look as good.

“There’s so much backstory, there’s so much trauma, and there are so many heartfelt emotions in each character. Then that comes through in the action. I think once you understand your character enough, the movement comes more easily.”

It’s common to hear of actors hurting themselves while getting ready for their martial arts scenes. Lawrence did get injured – but not for the reason you may expect.

“Towards the last week of shooting, I was out in Bangkok and I just jumped off a platform. And I really twisted my ankle. I couldn’t walk! It wasn’t training that injured me; it was just me being clumsy Lawrence.”

As an American actor of Asian descent, Lawrence Kao says he feels a responsibility to represent other Asians. He feels passionately about the cause of inclusion and promotes it on his social media.

“A lot of people are looking towards (the cast) as a form of representation for them. You know, I want to be a good actor and I want to show empathy. I want people to have empathy towards people that look like me and towards the Asian American community.

“Just being able to represent people that look like me on screen and show people that we’re here, that we’re a part of the conversation, will help better awareness towards diversity.”

“I’m just very thankful for all the fans and people on this journey with us. I really appreciate people that embraced the storytelling and the first season of Wu Assassin. What we do is pretty hard; all this action is pretty gruesome. So when people appreciate it and love to be entertained by it, it makes us feel good.

“We want to entertain people, especially during the pandemic. We want to make people feel happy and to tell fun stories. I’m incredibly grateful that fans are still here. I hope we can continue to tell more stories together.”

Wu Assassin: Fistful of Vengeance launches on Netflix on 17 February

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