Warrior S1

Series premiere. San Francisco, 1878. Ah Sahm, a newly arrived Chinese immigrant with serious fighting skills, is introduced by a fixer named Chao to Chinatown's most ruthless tong, the Hop Wei. After impressing Young Jun, son of tong leader Father Jun, Ah Sahm is branded and taken to the local brothel, where he befriends Ah Toy, a courtesan with connections. Later, in search of a woman who left China two years earlier, Ah Sahm crosses paths with Mai Ling and Li Yong, followers of the rival tong leader Long Zii, who is trying to avoid an opium war with the Hop Wei - a war that Walter Buckley, the deputy to San Francisco Mayor Samuel Blake, actively promotes. Meanwhile, after two Chinese laborers are killed by white thugs, police sergeant Big Bill O'Hara is tasked with creating a Chinatown squad. Enlisting a southern-born cop named Richard Henry Lee, Bill soon finds that the hostility between the Chinese and white dock workers, whose unofficial leader is an Irish tough named Dylan Leary, is unlikely to end anytime soon.

Intercepting a shipment of opium at the docks, Young Jun, with Ah Sahm and his Hop Wei lieutenant Bolo in tow, decides to send a message to Long Zii. Big Bill and Lee investigate a grisly murder scene in an alley next to an Irish bar, The Banshee. Penny Blake, the young wife of San Francisco's mayor, finds herself in a bind while visiting the wharf with her Chinese manservant Jacob. Ah Sahm pays a steep price for playing the hero. The Long Zii clean up a mess, and brace for more bloodshed.

Leary pressures Byron Mercer, Penny's father and a gentleman industrialist, to hire his men for a cable-car track job - despite the fact that Mayor Blake hasn't yet awarded Mercer the contract. Accused of assault and perhaps worse, Ah Sahm gets a cold shoulder from the Hop Wei, with his fate in the hands of an unexpected ally. Buckley urges Mai Ling to eschew restraint and start a war with the Hop Wei.

Big Bill finds himself compromised by his gambling excesses, but discovers a possible solution after an opium-den raid. Penny reveals the circumstances that prompted her to marry Mayor Blake, who's determined to show voters he won't tolerate San Francisco's "Yellow Peril." After meeting with leaders of the Fung Hai tong, Mai Ling offers Ah Sahm a way out of a protracted - and bloody - tong war.

Transporting precious cargo via stagecoach through the Sierra Nevada, Ah Sahm and Young Jun are forced to spend the night with three strangers at a frontier saloon in the middle of nowhere. The detour turns perilous when a notorious outlaw, Harlan French, shows up with his henchmen, looking for a lucrative payday.

Tensions escalate between the Hop Wei and Long Zii after an assassination attempt during a boisterous Chinatown parade. Big Bill sets out to pay his debt to Jack Damon, leaving Lee to keep watch over Lucy and the kids. Mayor Blake and Buckley get a mandate from Robert Crestwood, a senator with eyes on the White House.

Ah Sahm faces a dilemma when Bolo is sent by Father Jun to hunt down Long Zii and Mai Ling. Ah Toy recruits a special girl from a whore monger, and takes on a business partner for a land deal. Penny is faced with an unsavory choice in order to save her home; Lee's past catches up with him.

After a bloodbath on the streets of Chinatown, the Hop Wei and Long Zii consider a novel way to end hostilities. Ah Toy and her real-estate business partner, Leonard Patterson, hit a fork in the road in their effort to buy a valuable piece of land. After promising jobs to Leary's Irish workers, Mercer toasts Crestwood at a fundraiser, while Penny struggles to hold her tongue. Mai Ling warns her brother against waging a battle he may not win.

Chinatown gathers to witness a "prize fight" between elite warriors from the Hop Wei and Long Zii. Buckley plays a bluff in hopes of getting Mercer to lower his fee. Ah Sahm remembers his roots as a fighter as Ah Toy warns him of the dangers that await him. Bill and Lee question Wang Chao about the recent series of sword killings in San Francisco.

Inspired by an idea from Bruce Lee and created and executive produced by Jonathan Tropper (creator of CINEMAX’s “Banshee”), WARRIOR is a gritty, action-packed crime drama set during the brutal Tong Wars of San Francisco’s Chinatown in the second half of the 19th century. The series follows Ah Sahm, a martial arts prodigy who immigrates from China to San Francisco under mysterious circumstances, and becomes a hatchet man for one of Chinatown’s most powerful tongs - a Chinese organised crime family.