The CW’s Kung Fu has a little bit of everything for everyone. In addition to having amazing character stories, a “really hot” love triangle, and just so much heart in general, co-showrunner Christina Kim says the action-adventure family drama also has “some of the best kung fu on TV.” Aside from the series’ lead heroine Nicky Shen (Olivia Liang), a lot of the action scenes involve the hard-edged, cunning assassin Zhilan.
In an exclusive interview with PopWire, Zhilan’s portrayer, Yvonne Chapman, takes us behind the scenes of those fight scenes, from what helped her ease into the process, as well as the training portion of it. The actress also teases what fans can expect from the inaugural season’s remaining episodes.
There are quite a few actors that do a lot of fight scenes who have experience or a background in dance. For the Canadian-born actress, however, that is not the case. “Definitely not dance,” Chapman says with a laugh. “I have two left feet!” She shares that she has, however, practiced Muay Thai recreationally in the past.
“I used to have that as part of my work out, and growing up I played a ton of sports,” she says. “Thankfully, that translated to some of the fighting. Having that kind of physical background definitely helped with learning to fight, for sure.”
The fight training process for Kung Fu is dependent on the intricacy for each fight. The fight scene in the series premiere between Zhilan and her sister Pei-Ling (Vanessa Kai) was one of the most intricate fights they had done all season. That whole fight sequence in the pilot was really important to set the tone of the show.
“That one took the longest to learn,” Chapman says. “That was about a couple weeks before filming. We were in the studio almost every single day training for that.” She goes on to say that as the show progressed, depending on the time they had allotted for the episode, training could be anywhere from a few days before filming to maybe even a week.
“Thankfully, we always had enough time to learn what we needed to do,” she says. “The trainers are just amazing. They’re incredibly gifted at choreography and coaching us. I’m looking forward to seeing how [the rest] all comes together. I think people will be in for a treat.”
All of Zhilan’s fighting is due to the fact that she wants the sword of Liang Diayu and the other seven weapons as well. Viewers recently learned in Kung Fu that the Zhang family (Zhilan & Pei-Ling) are the guardians of the sword. It was also revealed to Nicky by her mother that the Shens are descendents of Liang Diayu, and that Nicky is the rightful owner to wield the sword.
“What we’ll see is the distinction between the guardian and the descendant,” Chapman explains. “While we’re the guardians of the sword, we protect it until the warrior needs it again. There is going to be quite a conflict. You will see how that relationship plays out between Zhilan and Nicky coming up.”
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In the latest episode of Kung Fu, we see that Zhilan already has three of the weapons, and her partner-in-crime’s father, Mr. Tan, has another of the three weapons, which Kerwin Tan (Ludi Lin) says they can consider theirs. Now, the assassin is just two weapons away from having it all. But where is this determination coming from, and why does she want to release Biange so bad and become unstoppable?
“There’s a huge moment coming up that will dive into that,” Yvonne Chapman teases. “I’m so excited for people to see it and understand her motivations. But there’s a whole other side of this story that has yet to be revealed.”
Kung Fu airs Wednesdays at 8pm on The CW.