Wu Assassins brings the star and action of the Raid to Netflix this weekend with a season that’s one hell of a kicker.
Throughout this, I’ll be breaking down everything that you need to know about the show, it’s ending as well as what could happen in season 2.
There will be heavy spoilers here so if you haven’t seen the show yet and don’t want to know what happens then I highly suggest that you turn off now.
With that out the way, I just wanna give a huge thank you for clicking this video now let’s get into my breakdown of Wu Assassins.
Wu Assassins Season One Recap
Wu Assassins follows Kai, a martial arts expert also known as The Chef who finds himself embroiled in an ancient war between the Wu Xing and Wu Assassins, two mystical groups that have secretly fought in the shadows over millennia. I’m going to try and keep this as simple as possible as there is a lot to unpack so I’ll be mainly sticking to the major plot points.
From the off the show introduces the dark side of San Francisco with the Triads enforcing their rule over the city.
Kai’s father is the leader of The Gang and also a member of the Wu Xing. After Kai is given the powers of The Wu’s the first season is primarily focused on Kai learning to hone his new found Wu Assassin abilities whilst also stopping his father from taking over the world though there comes some big power plays in the season that drastically changes the course of it.
This adds a lot to the dynamics of the show but at its core remains the battle between the two sides which throws Kai to blows with his father.
The Wu Explained
The Wu have mastered mystical abilities built around several elements and each of the ancient spirits possess and corrupt those that come into contact with them. They take their power from The Dao which is a sort of limbo between the real world and the afterlife which is where the thousand assassins who preceded Kai exist. This path comes into play into the ending of the season and is where Kai begins to master his abilities.
The path is devoid of time and space and exists in a sort of spiritual plane that the Wu is free to enter, however, if someone steps into it who has not been granted the correct powers then this can cause disastrous effects on all of reality.
Kai is tasked by Ying Ying to collect the elements and she sort of becomes his mentor. Tasked with destroying the elements Kai goes throughout the season from one to the next, tackling the forces of evil along the way whilst building a group of allies made up of CG, an undercover cop, Tommy, his sister Jenny and many more.
It’s an amazing ride that feels like the perfect mix between book action and mystical magic that delivers a martial arts masterpiece. The show even makes chopping up vegetables exciting and there’s some outstanding dynamism to the work. This is the bullet time of your life that showcases some of the best fight choreography that I’ve seen in the better part of the last decade. Each action set piece tops the last and its a thrill watching Kai takedown Wu Xing after Wu Xing in his quest to save the world.
Stop Trying To Wu Me
Along the way he collects most of the Wu and there are some big twists and turns and changes of power, mainly due to the death of Kai’s father who is murdered by Zan, his trusted assistant who takes over the gang.
Kai was really reluctant in fighting his father and this death comes as a huge blow to him.
This sends Kai on a quest for revenge and it all comes to a head in the finale when Kai is almost blackmailed into giving up the Wood Wu to Alec McCollough, played by Tommy Flannigan. McCollough is a prominent gangster and was holding Tommy in exchange for the Wu which pretty much grants immortality to the bearer.
Left with little choice, Kai tries to trick McCollough and gives the Wu too Tommy instead which completes the circle and opens the Path. McCollough suspected that this would happen which is why he decided to hold the exchange at an ancient ritual site which will activate the opening that will allow him to reunite with his family.
That doesn’t mean it’s all doom and gloom though and inside it the Wu Xing is removed from everyone and Kai is seemingly able to bring them all together as Ying Ying had done previously.
Wu Assassins Season One Ending Explained
McCollough descends deeper into the Path and meets his family where he finally gets to spend some quality time with them out in the woods. Think Kingpin in Into The Spider-verse but with trees and you get the idea. His reunion is rather short-lived however when he is pursued by Kai who manages to kill him. Kai spares McColloughs family which is when we get a huge time jump that might leave some viewers confused.
We find Kai back in the Kitchen similar to how we first met him in the initial episode of the season and it appears for the most part that things are back to normal. Zan has moved away to try and become a more prominent member of the Triads. Everyone settles down to eat some awesome food which is when Ying Ying appears and tells Kai that things aren’t over yet. The room begins to shake and dismantle similar to the way that a dream collapses in Inception and you get the feeling that not everything is as it seems.
So what does this mean? Well, personally I think that the entire time that Kai believed that things had returned to normal that he had actually been in his own Limbo similar to McCollough and that the ending of the season was all a hallucination. Outside of the first episode when Ying Ying meets Kai she only communicates with him on the path so it makes sense that she would be here at the end, desperately trying to claw him back to reality before he becomes lost in a dream.
There were warnings in the season that the longer someone spends in limbo that the more damaging it can be on reality and as McCollough spent a long time there it would make sense that Kai’s perspective could be vastly altered to the point that he’s unable to distinguish between what is real and what isn’t.
So what will happen going forward?
Wu Assassins Season Two Predictions
Well, personally I believe that the second season will kick start with Ying Ying pulling Kai to the real world and exposing that things in the finale didn’t exactly go the way that he thought. The fact that McCollough spent so long in limbo has drastically altered reality and the lines between the dimensions are now massively blurred to the point that the Wu have once more made their way to the world.
There is, of course, Zan who will now be a prominent figure in the Triads and will most likely be wishing to fully take control of the district no matter the means. This is why Kai is so essential and why Ying Ying had to go and get him because his powers are needed once more.
Whether this happens or not remains to be seen but there’s a hell of a lot of potential that could come in the future season. I absolutely loved Wu Assassins and can’t wait to see what comes down the line.
Your Thoughts
Obviously I’d love to hear your thoughts on Wu Assassins and what you took from the ending. Do you think Kai is still in Limbo or do you take the ending as Ying Ying coming into the real world? Comment below and let me know!
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