Interview: Lewis Tan on ‘Fistful of Vengeance’

Lewis Tan has been steadily working in the film industry as both an actor and a stuntman for well over a decade now, doing stunt work in franchise entries like Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in between appearances on shows such as CSI: NY and 24, but it wasn’t until he appeared in Netflix’s Iron Fist in a scene-stealing role that people finally started paying attention (fans even rallied around the actor after it was revealed he was almost cast as the titular Iron Fist.) Since then, Tan has been slowly climbing the ranks, finally landing his big breakout role in the latest film adaptation of Mortal Kombat, which shattered streaming records when it debuted on HBO Max and in theaters simultaneously last year.

His latest project, Fistful of Vengeance, which debuted on Netflix today, is the follow-up film to 2019 series Wu Assassins, a supernatural action show about a warrior who must search for the powers of an ancient triad and restore balance in San Francisco’s Chinatown. The film sees the Wu Assassin team reunite in Bangkok to avenge the death of one of their own, only to find that their new enemy is an ancient threat armed with otherworldly powers. While Fistful of Vengeance is a direct continuation of the series, Tan says that the film itself stands on its own despite that connection. “You don’t need to have seen the series in order to watch the film,” he says. “We wanted to do something kind of unique where fans that have seen the show and have gone on a journey with these characters are going to have a little bit more history with them, but you don’t need to watch the show in order to watch the film, which I think is pretty cool.”

While the first season of the show debuted to mostly positive reviews and good ratings, a second season never ended up materializing. Tan says it was due to many factors, including scheduling conflicts, but he maintains that a film follow-up was the perfect way to continue the story. “I was proud of what we did [with the first season,]” he says. “But there were definitely some things we could have done better. There were some weak points. There were some strong points. And yeah, we discussed doing a season 2, but there were a lot of things going on. It was getting to a point where it was kind of tricky [to do it] and they brought up the idea of doing a film and they thought that the film format would work really well for this concept.” Tan describes the film as a “streamlined” version of the series. “We kind of took the idea, the comments, the critiques on the series and we trimmed the fat so it’s a lot simpler, and all the action is much more compact,” he elaborates. “The film format ended up working really, really well for the concept.”

'Fistful of Vengeance' (Netflix)

Tan hopes that the film will eventually spawn a franchise of sorts, with a rotating door of international movie stars and actors, a concept he likens to the Fast and Furious franchise. “We want to hopefully develop something that could be like a Fast and the Furious kind of franchise, where we can bring in cool actors, like Jason Tobin from Warrior, Pearl Thusi, these awesome stars, these awesome Thai actors like Ying who’s really famous in Thailand, and then just up the ante of the action every time. I really think that we stepped it up for this movie, for sure.” Although a sequel isn’t officially in the cards, Tan says he hopes to see one eventually materialize. “If people enjoy this one, I would like to do a second movie because this format works really well for the Wu Assassins. I think that we can create new action sequences, new designs each time. We’re hoping that people really enjoy this one, and if they enjoy this one, we want to do another one and just make it even crazier.”

In addition to Fistful of Vengeance, Tan also has a couple of other projects in the pipeline, including the upcoming second season of hit series Shadow and Bone, which is currently filming in Budapest. “It’s just incredible,” he says of the book that the Netflix show is based on. “I met [author] Leigh Bardugo a few days ago. She’s awesome.” He is also a self-confessed fan of the series, which reached the top of the Netflix charts when it debuted last year. “It was really cool to be a part of it. I really love what they did with season one. I thought the production design, the VFX, and the writing were really, really, really well done, so I’m excited to try something new, a different genre for me, kind of.” While it’s still a ways from debuting on the streaming platform, Tan is already looking forward to the reaction the new season is going to get from fans. “Season two is going to be insane,” he gushes. “I’m really excited and the cast is really nice. They’ve been very welcoming. I’ve been [in Hungary] for two months now, and we’ve been working really hard.”

'Shadow and Bone' (Netflix)

Tan will play Tolya Yul-Bataar. A mercenary, member of Sturmhond’s (played by Patrick Gibson in the series) crew, he is a Grisha Heartrender who fights with main character Alina Starkov (Jessie Mei-Li) during the course of the first book. Despite being Grisha, who are humans equipped with the power of manipulating matter, Tolya usually fights with a variety of weapons. While Tolya mostly interacts with a set group of characters, including Alina and Sturmhond, in the original book series, the show merges that storyline with that of the Crows from Shadow and Bone spin-off, Six of Crows. Will those sets of characters interact now that they are in the same show? “I can’t say too much about it,” he teases. “But I think you’ll end up seeing something similar to how the first season was, where they kind of merged these two books together. I believe that you’ll see something similar to that so you’ll probably see a lot of the characters interact with each other, which is pretty cool.”

Tan’s character Tolya also has a twin sister Tamar, a fellow member of Sturmhond’s crew who will be played by Anna Leong Brophy. “It’s funny because we’re actually so close in age,” says Tan of Brophy. “Our birthdays are four days apart in real life and we have a very similar background. She’s awesome. She’s so cool to work with. I think it’s going to be interesting to explore the dynamic of twins. Especially these twins that are Heartrenders.” For the uninitiated, Heartrenders are Grisha who can use their power to damage a person’s internal organs. Their ability ranges from slowing a person’s pulse to snatching the air from their lungs. “They can essentially read energy,” he explains. “They can get a rise out of each other, and I think that’s what really drew me to the character because it’s cool to be able to explore that with another actor; this kind of subconscious connection that you have with them.”

'Mortal Kombat' (Warner Bros.)

Aside from Shadow and Bone season 2, Tan also has the highly anticipated sequel to Mortal Kombat up next. “We got an amazing writer, Jeremy Slater, who wrote Moon Knight for Marvel, onboard,” he says of the sequel. “His writing is really good and he’s really smart. I’m excited to see what he develops, because it’s a tricky one with Mortal Kombat. There are so many storylines. It’s very complex; there are so many characters. It’s a hard one to get done in a two-hour period or an hour and a half. Hopefully, they can make the sequel a little bit longer and we can explore more characters and more themes, and just make it even bloodier and even bigger than the first one. That’s our plan.” He is also gearing up for his directorial debut, which is based on the story of his father, martial artist, actor, and stunt coordinator Philip Tan. “I’m developing that with Nina Yang Bongiovi, who produced Rebecca Hall‘s Passing,” he reveals. “We’re developing that together as my directorial debut.” In the meantime, however, he’s looking forward to how fans will respond to Fistful of Vengeance. “I’m so excited,” he gushes. “After the first ten minutes of the movie, it’s just non-stop action. People say that about a lot of things, but you will see after the first 10 minutes, the action just doesn’t stop. You go on this crazy journey with the characters. It’s like a wild roller coaster ride.”

Fistful of Vengeance is now streaming on Netflix.