Black Sash

i must admit i really liked this show. the martial arts are not realistic but i found the characters easy to follow. the story seems pretty cheesy, and it is a "no-brainer" type of show, but tell me what other WB show isn't? basically, it's just a feel good hour of television and it sure beats watching bad reality television.

The martial arts in the show is Ba Gua Zhang (Eight Trigram Palms) and it is not shown correctly on the show. At least not in the fight scenes. But I do like how they don't use wires and do impossible flips and moves. It IS a realistic view of martial arts even thought Camera Tricks are used. The moves on the show can actually be done in the real world. Russell Wong (vanishing son series) though is not a "master" of any form of martial arts has done enough fighting stuntwork and choreography to pull off being the teacher and overseer of the school. The kids are faced with real life problems such as Child abuse, obsession, crime, etc... I have heard that the WB has cancelled the show only four eps into the six that were first ordered. I think it's a huge mistake on there part. THe show has the potential to be the WB's next Dawsons Creek if they developed the characters right. Overall I give the series a 9/10. I'd recommend it to anyone.

This was a show I didn't think would be all that good, but when Alias had reruns, I thought I would check it out to see what it's about. Surprisingly, I found it to be a pretty decent show. Russell Wong is really good in the show. I watch a lot of dark shows like Angel, Buffy, but I do still like to see shows about a caring person, trying to help others, and this is what it is. The character Tom, who has had a troubled past of his own, takes in some a few troubled teens and teaches them martial arts, and just to give them a better outlook on life. I recommend that you give this a chance, you might be just as surprised as me.

Five outcasts work under an ex-San Francisco police officer who runs a kung fu studio. Tommy Chen was a San Francisco narcotics cop who went to Hong Kong to stop the flow of heroin

into the City by the Bay. His partner in Hong Kong was in on it and framed him for posession. He served five years in Hong Kong. During that time, he lost everything, including his wife and

daughter. He was served a restraining order telling him to keep 100 yards away from his ex-wife, her husband, and his daughter. Now he has to work as a bounty hunter to raise the five thousand dollars to see her. Tori, the daughter of a murdered cop, has a

chip on her shoulder the size of the Rock of Gibraltar. Tommy

takes on a student who's been physically abused by his father. Tori and Tommy go after the man who killed her father. Tommy and his old kung fu master go after the man, Billy Wu, and his boss. His new student gets the courage to see that his abusive father's put away.

Sunday nights I sat and watched Angel, and noticed a new show coming on afterwards at 9. Without anything else better to do, and absolutely no expectations, I watched the entire pilot of Black Sash. Each character was represented completely, but you could tell they were rushing to detail each character in the 45-minute segment. Other than that, I was hooked. Each character has some sort of physical/emotional struggle, and their martial arts training ties in with each episode, it's uniquely blended to put on a great episode. The actors do a great job, Russell Wong is great as the mentor, and his grandfather also hands him advice. Good show, sad it got cancelled. Watch for re-runs. Oh, and yes, the actors are all good-looking. That helps.