JONATHAN TROPPER talks about how he came to be involved in creating the WARRIOR TV series. As a keen Bruce Lee fan he had heard the legends around an unmade series written by Bruce Lee in the 1960s.
He explains how Cinemax asked him to meet Shannon Lee, Bruce Lee’s daughter, and Justin Lin to talk about their series treatment. He was extremely keen to see Bruce Lee’s original pages, from there he started reading, they all started talking, and at some point they began to work together. Now they are prepping Season 2…
He talks about how they created the script to encompass the scope, scale and ambition of the original story and real history and make it accessible for today’s audience.
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.
Over the course of the season, Ah Sahm crosses boundaries inside and outside Chinatown, bringing him into contact with tong rivals Mai Ling (Dianne Doan), a beautiful and ruthless Chinese woman who has achieved a position of power in one of the tongs, and Li Yong (Joe Taslim), a tong lieutenant and Gung Fu master. As violence erupts, Sergeant “Big Bill” O’Hara (Kieran Bew) and Richard Henry Lee (Tom Weston-Jones), a transplanted southerner and rookie cop, are tasked with forming a Chinatown squad.
Meanwhile, working-class leader and tough Irishman Dylan Leary (Dean Jagger) is fighting for all Irish laborers by trying to inflict as much damage as possible on the Chinese immigrants he says are stealing their jobs. Amidst the strife, power-hungry San Francisco Mayor Samuel Blake (Christian McKay) and Deputy Mayor Walter Buckley (Langley Kirkwood), who has his own political aspirations, engage in widespread corruption, while the mayor’s young wife, Penny (Joanna Vanderham), finds herself trapped in a loveless marriage.
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.
Starring Andrew Koji (“Fast & Furious 6”) as martial arts prodigy Ah Sahm, WARRIOR also features series regulars Kieran Bew (“The Street”), Olivia Cheng (“Marco Polo”), Dianne Doan (“Vikings”), Dean Jagger (HBO’s “Game of Thrones”), Langley Kirkwood (“Invictus”), Hoon Lee (CINEMAX’s “Banshee”), Christian McKay (“Me and Orson Welles”), Joe Taslim (“Fast & Furious 6”), Jason Tobin (“The Fast & the Furious: Tokyo Drift”), Joanna Vanderham (“The Paradise”), Tom Weston-Jones (“Copper”) and Perry Yung (CINEMAX’s “The Knick”).
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.
JONATHAN TROPPER
Creator & Executive Producer Tropper Ink Productions
Jonathan Tropper is the internationally bestselling author of six novels that have been translated into over thirty languages. He adapted his novel, This Is Where I Leave You as a 2014 feature film starring Jason Bateman and Tina Fey, and is currently adapting his novel One Last Thing Before I Go. He recently produced his original feature script Kodachrome, starring Ed Harris, Jason Sudeikis, and Elizabeth Olsen, which will be released on Netflix in 2018.
Jonathan co-created and executive produced the television show Banshee, which premiered on Cinemax in January 2013 and ran for four seasons. His latest television drama, Warrior, recently received a straight-to-series order and began production in Cape Town, South Africa in November 2017. It will premiere on Cinemax in 2019. Jonathan lives with his wife and three children in Westchester, NY.
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