One of the hidden gems on Cinemax’s original lineup has to be Warrior. It is most often referred as the more diverse version of Peaky Blinders. The series which is a creation of Bruce Lee’s writing was brought to life by Bruce’s daughter, Shannon Lee, focuses on Chinese immigrant Ah Sahm as he arrives in San Francisco in 1875. Sahm, is quickly sucked into Chinatown’s Tong Wars after joining the Hop Wei Tong, all while anti-Chinese sentiments grow more hostile in the city, who believe that Chinese workers are taking jobs away from them. Actor Chen Tang has joined the show for its second season and we discuss what brought him to this show. We also talked about the intense training it took for this show as well as filming Mulan.

Nancy Tapia: So it’s kind of cool to get to speak to you about your career. Recently we got to see you in Mulan. You played, Yao who is one of the characters that got to play directly with the  Mulan character. What was your experience working with Yifei Liu?

Chen Tang: She’s my sister, you know? Haha…We hang out all the time now. She’s just great! I mean, I loved working with her. She’s quite a big star in Asia and you would never know it. I mean, she’s just the most down to earth and one of the hardest working actors I’ve ever worked with by far. First to set, last to leave. Just always prepared, always… just amazing. It was amazing just to see and to watch her sort of embody what I, as the Chinese person feels about Mulan, our Mulan was. Just a tough girl, and really had no problem being one of the guys, haha. So yeah, it was wonderful.

Nancy Tapia: That’s great! So, besides filming together, did you train together too?

Chen Tang: We actually, believe it or not, we did not. We trained just off and on with some of the stunt stuff. But the way they divided us was they put everybody in bootcamp. Everyone that had physical stuff. They did that because Niki Caro (director) kind of wanted this feeling of not only the way you look, but also the way you move, the way you walk, the way you feel. The energy of you as a labor, farmer soldier you’d see doing physical labor all your life. Nowhere was that more evident in the way that she put the squad together, like the boys. We called it a squad and it was just all the soldier, buddy friends that she knew. There were five of us and we did it together. We were at bootcamp every single day. Monday through Friday, every single day that we were down there. Just to sort of make us suffer together in a way, haha!

But Yifei had her own bootcamp and she trained every single day. I mean, it was probably eight, 10 hours a day.

Nancy Tapia: How long was the bootcamp?

Chen Tang: Not just physical training, believe it or not. Hours after hours of stunts. Big thing for her was horseback riding. So, we all had that too. Archery, things like that. They even had a bootcamp for the extras that made up the army.

Nancy Tapia: Oh, wow!

Chen Tang: They had their own bootcamp,  they had their own camp. We had to join them because we had to march together and learn how to spear and shield, fight, make formations and stuff like that. So, it was a lot of that. But as far as when we were training together, she had so much to do herself that they just kept her in her own thing.

Nancy Tapia:  There were very nice set piece, what were the set pieces like? And filming?

Chen Tang: Oh man, I think the best thing, best is an understatement, haha…We were in New Zealand, I mean, it’s the end of the earth. We shot the entire thing in New Zealand because of there are a lot of places that truly look like the Western China and the Gobi desert. So when we shot there, there was almost little if no green screen. So everything that you see there, like all those mountains, they’re all there.

Nancy Tapia: Oh, beautiful…

Chen Tang: Disney is the dream factory for a reason. You need a castle? That fort, that they were fighting on, that castle was built! Like they just built it. I’ve never seen anything like it. I mean, when you walk around it and they just build it. You could run up the walls and fight on them. Like this is legit.

Nancy Tapia: It’s still there?

Chen Tang: No, actually they took it down. They just build them up and take them down after the filming is done.  When we first arrived to New Zealand and we were going to pre-production, they were in the middle of building. I’m talking they were building the fort right next to our trailers. It’s like shipping containers, they take shipping crates, stack them on top of each other. Like four or five high. They just plaster around it and it’s legitimate, it’s huge. When we were filming it you didn’t even really need to imagine anything. You just look around and you’re there. That was one of the coolest things for me.

Nancy Tapia: For your overall experience of Mulan, what’s the one thing that you’re going to take from the whole experience?

Chen Tang: One of the great experiences of my life! I will remember it till the day I die. You dream about it. It’s not just a Hollywood movie. We’re actors here. We all have these kind of dreams, of being on a Hollywood set. This is epic in a way that I could not imagine.

Nancy Tapia: Let’s move on with Warriors. In this TV series you play, Hong.

Chen Tang: Yes.

Nancy Tapia: Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Chen Tang: See that’s another great experience in my life. Because as soon as we wrapped Mulan, I had the good fortune of auditioning and then eventually getting on to the cast of the second season of our show. Warrior has a really special place in my heart because it couldn’t be more different than coming from like seventh century China, haha… I was basically plucked out of New Zealand. We shot it in Cape Town, South Africa. So I was traveling across the world. Yeah, it’s the tip of Africa and that’s where we shot it. The show is, absolutely incredible well-made show. It’s basically in a nutshell about 19th century Chinatown gang war. In a fantasized sort of healthy way. I like to call it Peaky Blinders for Asia, basically.

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So, we’ve been flying under the radar for a while, but it’s incredible. We’ve been getting so much love from all the fans and HBO and Cinemax were a dream to work for. Me personally, I went from a ginormous set, ginormous production to something like a very intimate family in a way.

It was so collaborative and they were so willing to take our ideas. They basically gave us almost so much free reign as our characters, as actors. As a creative, that’s a dream. When the producers could come to you and the writers, they’re like, “Leave it halfway. We encourage it. What do you think? Well how do you like this?” And they’re like, how do you want to move as your character? How do you want to see the world? Do you have any ideas? They basically gave you free reign to create it however you wanted to. So, for me, when I got there, it was basically my character Hong in Warrior is night and day from Yao in Mulan.

First of all, I had to lose about 15 pounds because that’s the way I wanted the character to be. Yeah, I went from this sort of in a nutshell to this sort of mud brick to sort of this flowy string. But that’s the essence of how I approached the physicality.

It’s a slow kind of martial artist and I loved my character on it because it was just so interesting. Have you gotten a chance to see any of this or anything? Did you get to see the first season at all?

Nancy Tapia: Unfortunately, I have not. I did check out a couple of short clips though. It definitely looks very interesting.

Chen Tang: So you get the whole vibe of the show, right? First off, it’s a martial arts drama. But, it’s so much more than that. Honestly, we’ve been getting a lot of love from a lot of the Parade magazine, TV Guide, stuff like that. I don’t think there’s another show on the air just like it. I don’t say that lightly because I’m pretty honest. It was the most collaborative project I’ve ever been on in terms of just the cast, welcoming in. We’re talking not just the work, the character. How do we do the scene? Stuff like that. It was always a labor of love from everybody, top to bottom. From each field, all the way from the producers all the way down.

I basically got to play this character who’s a sort of, I like to call him like a baby faced assassin, haha…I’m just a really sweet nice guy who’s not quite there in the head. Who happens to be a vicious mass murderer. Like, there’s a really nice guy that genuinely cares about people, haha..

Nancy Tapia: That’s the charming factor though and you do it well.

Chen Tang: Yeah, it’s fun. I definitely felt like doing something like Warrior. Just getting in that world right after something like Mulan. Basically going into two separate corners of the earth. It was a dream. I literally, some days I would just wake up and just like, if this is a dream? I don’t wake me up. You know?

Nancy Tapia: Sharing having to go through this physical change from Yao to Hong says a lot of reference to what you’re willing to do to fulfill a character you strongly believe in. That’s something to admire.

Chen Tang: Oh, absolutely. Because listen, I’ve got to work. Our job is to be this guy and the way you move and the way you go through life and the things that you do, they really affect how you feel inside. Just for a small example, when you’ve woken up, from a terrible sleep, you’re going to feel pretty different for the rest of the day. That to me, for somebody like the character Hong, I’m a gangster. I’m in a gang and I’m an extremely skilled martial artist. To have that and to be able to work through with the stunt coordinators and just the way I fight or just the way I move, it gave me so much about this character and the way I look at the world. The way I see the world now. That is part of our work. I think it’s a pretty essential part of character we play. If you don’t know how you walk around as this person, I don’t think you have it yet.

Nancy Tapia: So what do you look for in your characters?

Chen Tang: Number one, that’s sort of like a layered question. Because for me, personally, I’m a big believer in the malleability of the human mind and spirit in a way.

What I mean by that is who we are is just the sum of the experiences that we’ve lived. So when I look at a character, I don’t care if it’s just a guy in a cafe having one line. I’m like, well, if this guy works in the cafe, that is his whole life. Right?

Nancy Tapia: Mm-hmm.

Chen Tang: It’s just like every other human being does. That to me is sort of where I kind of start with when I look at characters. So, when you ask, “Oh, what do you look for in a character?” I’m actually thinking about, what the character is actually giving me because I am so interested.  I’m genuinely interested in everybody else’s life. I think being an actor, sometimes the most boring job because everybody else’s life is super interesting. Like you’re a reporter. What is that like? What is your journey? Or like I’m talking to the guy at 7-11. I’m like, where did he come from? What’s he doing? What’s it like late at night? What has he been through? There is a whole galaxy of meaning behind every little thing. To me, that’s the most interesting thing. So when I see a character in a script or something I would love to have. I would love the audience to be on the journey. So I would love to have a lot of stuff in there. But I’m going to make it anyway.

I’m going to explore that anyway. Just sort of live through that. So the only in a long winded answer, I’d love to see to get to play characters that really have these unique stories, unique lives that are so far away from the life that I live. I find myself to be, I’m just a boring, annoying, actor in LA. Haha…It’s not as interesting to me as the cop or the lawyer and whatever they went through. As long as it’s far from me, I’m really drawn to it. The further, the better. The further, the more I’m drawn to it.

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Nancy Tapia: Wow, Chen your answer, honestly, was not expected. If anything, that just tells me the type of humble personality you have. That’s great to hear from someone for-

Chen Tang: Oh really? What kind of answer were you expecting? Haha…

Nancy Tapia: Like you saying, you find other people interesting. You probably feed from other people’s stories. You feed from, in this case, the characters that come across.You wonder, “Well, how do I, what can I bring in for this character?” It’s not the other way around. That’s pretty impressive. That’s really good!

Chen Tang: Yeah, it’s great fun! The way I look at it is we’re infinite beings. You know, if I was dropped off in what, say South Africa when I was a child and I grew up there, I would be a completely different person than I am now. So, I always wondered, through our imagination, we can go to these places and just go through a whole life. I literally, could feel a cellular change in a way. Well, when I’m going up and doing it for a while.

Nancy Tapia: So changing the subject to start wrapping up. What do you have coming up? Where will we be seeing you? 

Chen Tang: Obviously right now with the pandemic, our industry sort of has been shuttered for a little while. I’m taking a lot of time currently to just recenter. I’m always working on my craft. So I’m always working on some aspect, working on some character I’ve always drawn to. Also taking a look at a lot of these scripts that are coming in. Auditions that are coming in and seeing what I’m being drawn to. So, currently nothing yet concrete on the horizon. I’ve entertained some thoughts of some people talking about some indie style or some indie films.

Anything like these character-driven dramas then they go to a completely different place. I’m happy to wait for the right character that calls me. We’re waiting for tonight when season two premiers for Warrior. So we’re really excited about that. We can’t wait for the world to see this. 

Nancy Tapia: Well, it was a perfect day to speak to you then. Indeed.

Chen Tang: Yeah, absolutely!

Nancy Tapia: We have something to watch for the weekend. Chen, thank you so much for your time. I enjoyed speaking with you. Like I said, keep up this humble personality. Nowadays that is very valuable.

Chen Tang: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time out of your day to talk to me. If you get a chance, check out our season. I don’t say this lightly, I’m quite hard on my own work. This show is so good. It’s criminally underappreciated. It’s criminal, what do you call it? It’s definitely, once more people see it, people just really enjoy it.

Nancy Tapia: I’m sure we will. We will check it out on Cinemax. Thank you so much, Chen. 

Chen Tang: All right… Thank you.

You can check out Warrior right now on Cinemax and MaxGo

Source: LRM Online Exclusive