Favorite Characters: Sunny (Into the Badlands)

And so it begins.  I’ll try to pace myself (kind of,) but expect a lot of these in the coming weeks.  Digging in deeper with Into the Badlands, there’s a lot to love.  For me, though, everything starts with Sunny (a few spoilers.)

From what I can gather, Sunny has little to no memory of his life before training as a clipper.  Other characters reminisce about when he was found and brought to Quinn as a child – of the potential they saw in him even then – and he’s kept his compass with the symbol of Asra on it all these years.  He hides the compass, so he knows there’s something to it, but it’s hard to say what happened to him between then and now that gives us the man he is today.  Not just the lethal, incredibly-skilled clipper (we’ll get to that later,) but how entrenched he is in his life in the Badlands under Quinn.  Sure, he has his small rebellions that he conducts in secret:  his tender relationship with Veil when clippers are allowed sex but not love, his gradual journey toward literacy.  By and large, though, he seems to buy into what Quinn is selling, at least to the point that he never seriously considers defying him or leaving, not until M.K. shows up also carrying Asra’s symbol.  Was Sunny too young when he came to Quinn to hold onto memories of Asra?  Did the harsh brutality of his training make him bury thoughts of it, or maybe convince himself that Asra is just a fairytale he made up?  Did something horrible happen to him there that he’s blocked out, or somewhere between Asra and the Badlands?  Is it just that he had no way of getting back, so he decided not to dwell on it?

We can’t answer these questions, because we don’t get a lot from Sunny.  Some might call Sunny a rather stereotypical “stoic” martial artist, all glorious fight scenes and no character development or emotional connection, but I don’t get that at all.  While Sunny is certainly serious and taciturn, it’s not because he doesn’t feel anything, and it’s definitely not because there’s nothing going on under the surface.  Rather, Sunny keeps a lot hidden, unspoken.  This is partly due to pure safety.  Secrets can be dangerous in the Badlands, and not all of Sunny’s affect only him – he has Veil to think of as well.  And beyond secrets, as a clipper, even emotion can be a danger.  No matter how he came by it, most of his life has been about serving Quinn, and that means he always has to unshakeable.  Regardless of whatever doubts, guilt, or disagreement he might have, he can’t let on for a second.  But Sunny’s guardedness is out of more than survival instinct.  It’s also a reflection of all he’s seen and done, and what he thinks of himself as a result of it.  It’s easier to slaughter at Quinn’s behest if he shuts himself off from thinking of them as people, from thinking about the blood on his hands, and while he doesn’t really acknowledge it, he has a tendency to want to hide the darkest parts of himself from Veil.  So he keeps secrets.  He pretends.  He brushes things off.  He insists on doing things himself.  He wears a mask of cold apathy to fool others, and himself, into thinking that what he does can’t touch him.

For me, Sunny doesn’t come across the least bit blank.  I always feel what he has stirring beneath his calm, even voice and his set expression.  Daniel Wu is great at letting the smallest hints show through the cracks, whether it’s worry, remorse, aggravation, affection, shock, amusement, or fear.  It’s been interesting to see him in a different situation in the episodes so far this season, without the usual trappings he employs to distance himself.  He still tries to maintain the strong-and-silent thing, but it’s not nearly as solid – I think we might be getting a better look at who Sunny is when he’s not being Legendary Sunny the Clipper.

Speaking of?  Holy hell, can that man fight!  Within the first few episodes of the show, I thought it was stretching credibility that he’s only racked up 404 kills (how long has he been a clipper – six months?)  He is the absolute man in combat.  For me, it’s sort of like the martial-arts equivalent of listening to the deductions on the first couple seasons of Sherlock:  stunningly-perfect aptitude that’s completely on its own level and frequently leaves my jaw on the floor.  I don’t know if there’s any truth to the speculation that anyone with a connection to Asra has similar qualities as M.K., but either way, Sunny can’t be matched, and not just in his flawless execution.  I love the details that the fighting shows about Sunny as a person.  At various points when he fights, we see his ingenuity, determination, desperation, fury, and even playfulness (this can be a heavy show, and virtually every laugh is somehow tied to something Sunny does while he’s fighting.)  It’ll be interesting to see how if new circumstances – and new perspective – will change how he fights at all, for better or worse.