# Warrior (2019)

> A martial arts prodigy immigrates to 1870s San Francisco and becomes a hatchet man for a powerful tong amid brutal Chinatown gang wars.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/63989

## Facts

- Seasons: 3
- Episodes: 30
- Episode runtime: 55 min
- Status: Canceled
- Genres: crime, action, drama, western
- Created by: Jonathan Tropper
- Network: Cinemax, Max
- Cast: Andrew Koji, Olivia Cheng, Jason Tobin, Dianne Doan, Kieran Bew, Dean S. Jagger, Tom Weston-Jones, Hoon Lee
- TMDB rating: 8.4/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5743796/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: brisk
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: graphic
- Tone: gritty, visceral, propulsive, melancholic, brooding

## What critics say

Audiences rate Warrior as acclaimed, praising its martial arts action and brutal crime-war storytelling, while some find its later season repetitive and its ending abrupt.

## Synopsis

Warrior (2019-2023) is a Cinemax crime drama series created by Jonathan Tropper, a gritty action-packed western set during the brutal Tong Wars of San Francisco's Chinatown in the second half of the nineteenth century. Andrew Koji plays Ah Sahm, a martial arts prodigy who arrives from China under mysterious circumstances and becomes a hatchet man for one of Chinatown's most powerful tongs. Olivia Cheng plays Ah Toy, and Jason Tobin plays Young Jun, two principal figures whose loyalties are tested as rival criminal houses bargain, betray and bloody one another across the district's alleys and gambling dens. The engine of the show is a young fighter's struggle to survive in a city hostile to him while navigating the code of the tong that owns his blade. Each season is built from a continuing storyline rather than standalone cases, unfolding across three seasons and thirty episodes of hard-edged confrontation. Set in a frontier city of saloons, opium dens and corrupt officials, it carries a visceral, propulsive tone and a melancholy sense of displacement. Its martial arts choreography and period grit will appeal to viewers who enjoy the bloody power struggles of Peaky Blinders, the frontier brutality of Deadwood, and the gang warfare of Gangs of New York.

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