HONG KONG, Nov 24 — AMC’s new action fantasy series “Into the Badlands” debuted with the highest ratings of any new cable or network series this season.

It takes place in a dystopian future America ruled by seven ruthless barons, combines ambitiously expansive worldbuilding with breathtakingly elaborate martial arts combat.

Here, in excerpts from an interview with Slate, the show’s star Daniel Wu shares a few insights into the sleeper hit.

Why “Into the Badlands” feels so familiar, yet it’s not

“Our goal was to take the typical wuxia film and set it in a future America, giving it a kind of Southern gothic vibe. We wanted to replicate the basic structure — the feudal society, the epic battles, the themes of loyalty and honour — but to do it as a mashup with tropes that people would feel were weirdly familiar.”

On righting wrongs

“Stephen Fung [an executive producer and the series’ fight director] and I wanted to reference everything we liked growing up. Late ‘80s and ‘90s Hong Kong action movies — Tsui Hark and Jet Li, Jackie Chan. Some old-school Shaw Brothers stuff. And anime, like ‘Fist of the North Star.’ Samurai films like ‘Shogun Assassin,’ because we saw the two main characters, Sunny and MK, as wandering through this world like ‘Lone Wolf and Cub.’ And of course Bruce Lee. In a lot of ways, we saw this as righting the wrong that occurred when Warner Brothers cast David Carradine over Bruce Lee in ‘Kung Fu.’”

Why he almost didn’t take the role of “Sunny”

“I had my producer’s hat on, and I told [AMC] we had to find someone in their 20s or 30s, because if this show goes on for five or six years, the amount of fighting that has to be done is incredible — you’d need someone in their physical peak. I’m 41 now. I’ve worked with Jackie Chan, and I’ve seen the injuries he’s had, the pain he’s in. I stopped doing martial arts films in Hong Kong years ago, because as much as I love the genre, I tore an ACL, I broke an ankle — I realised it was not sustainable.”

How “Into the Badlands” is a postmodern Journey to the West

“The plot is loosely, very loosely, inspired by Journey to the West … The Chinese name for the Monkey King is Sun Wukong — Sunny. And the journey of the title has Sun Wukong tasked with guiding a monk to retrieve the wisdom of enlightenment. MK stands for Monk. We wanted to give our story a solid spiritual core. Sunny and MK are on a quest to escape the Badlands to reach this legendary city called Azra. Well, originally the city’s name was Nirvana, but we thought that was a bit too obvious.”

On “Sunny” as a sex symbol

“It felt especially important to show an Asian male as having a sensual side. We all know the story of ‘Romeo Must Die,’ how Jet Li is the movie’s hero, and the whole time you see this connection developing between him and Aaliyah, who played the female lead. And in the last scene, Li was supposed to kiss her, but when they showed the movie to test audiences, people said they found that disgusting. In the version they released, you just see them give each other a hug. So I don’t want to say this is groundbreaking, because we need to make this a success yet, but it’s cool that we were able to right that wrong too. It’s been 15 years since ‘Romeo Must Die,’ and 40 years since ‘Kung Fu.’ That’s just ridiculous. But it’s Hollywood, so I’ll take it.”