Wu Assassins star Lawrence Kao breaks down Tommy twists
Note: This article contains spoilers for Wu Assassins.
Wu Assassins star Lawrence Kao has discussed his character Tommy Wah's journey over the course of the first season.
When viewers first meet Tommy, he's a heroin addict, hangs out with the Triads, and is prone to disappointing his friends.
He was also blamed for a devastating fire that scarred his friend Lu Xin, back when they were teenagers. But as everybody discovers during the season, the fire wasn't Tommy's fault and was instead caused by Uncle Six, the Fire Wu.
Later episodes saw Tommy having heart-to-heart conversations with both Jenny and Lu Xin, and Tommy is further motivated to turn his life around.
"It's awesome. You build up this character to believe that he's done this horrible thing in the past, and you hold onto this guilt your whole life," Kao said in an interview with Digital Spy. "And because you hold onto that guilt, you just believe that you'll never be the person that other people hope you to be.
"Once Tommy gets to have these conversations with Jenny and Lu Xin, it's like a release.
"They're like forgiveness scenes, things that he needs himself and things that he needs to fix within him in order to become a better person. And because he's given that, ultimately he's able to adjust his paradigm about life and shift this perception about himself, and begin to become a better person."
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Kao was full of praise for co-star Li Jun Li, who plays his on-screen sister Jenny.
"She's such a giving actress, and we both really understand each other," he said.
"What's funny is that both of us are only children. We both in our real lives don't have the understanding of what it is to have siblings. But it just all clicked, and now she just definitely feels like my sister."
Late in the season, Tommy is taken hostage by Alec McCollough (Tommy Flanagan), as McCollough demands the final Wu piece from Kai Jin (Iko Uwais).
During the confrontation in the season finale, Kai tries to stop McCollough's plan and gives Tommy the Earth Wu, which grants him the Earth Wu's powers. Tommy doesn't get to enjoy his powers for long, however. When McCollough successfully activates the portal to the Dao, all of the Wu pieces leave the five human hosts.
"Of course that happens to Tommy!" Kao laughed.
The show has seen characters such as McCollough and Uncle Six (Byron Mann) use their powers for evil, but Jenny did try to use her Fire Wu powers for good to stop McCollough.
Kao said that with the journey Tommy has been through, he would have been intrigued to see how his character would have responded to being the Earth Wu.
"I think it would be interesting especially for his character to explore," he said, "because when you get the power, you can either use it for good or for evil. And you never really know with Tommy's character, because he's so unpredictable.
"It would be fun to explore what he would actually do if he had that. And it was very short-lived in the last episode, but hopefully there's a season two.
"I would love to explore what it would be like to possess a power – and what it would be like for all of us to possess a power!"
All ten episodes of Wu Assassins season 1 are available to watch on Netflix right now.
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