Martial Law (TV series)
Encyclopedia
Martial Law was a TV crime drama that ran on CBS
from 1998 to 2000, and was created by Carlton Cuse
. The title character, Sammo Law, portrayed by Sammo Hung
, was a Chinese law officer and martial arts
expert who came to Los Angeles
in search of a colleague and remains in the US.
The show was a surprise hit, making Hung the only East Asian headlining a prime-time network series in America. At the time, Hung was not fluent in English, and he reportedly recited some of his dialogue phonetically. In many scenes, Hung did not speak at all, making Martial Law perhaps the only US television series in history that featured so little dialogue from the lead character.
) exited the show after Episode 6, "Extreme Measures", as she moved away to live with "her parents" as noted on the following episode. Then on Episode 9, "How Sammo Got His Groove Back", Arsenio Hall
joined the cast as Terrell Parker, a wisecracking former LAPD
press liaison who began helping out Sammo and the gang on cases. The pairing of Hung and Hall as partners was similar to, albeit a bit less overtly comedic than, the partnership between Sammo's friend, Jackie Chan
, and Chris Tucker
in the Rush Hour
feature films. At the end of the episode "Cop Out", when Sammo Law is driving through Los Angeles, a sign is seen which advertises Rush Hour, as the movie was released at the time of the episode.
& William Rabkin took the helm at the beginning of the second season due to runaway production costs. They more or less pretended that the first season did not exist, retaining only the basic concept of a fish-out-of-water detective. Cast members Louis Mandylor
and Tom Wright
were dropped. Gretchen Egolf
was brought in to play the unit's new leader, Amy Dylan, from the beginning of Season 2. Additionally, Parker's past in public relations was scrapped. The first season's cliffhanger
ending (plus the dropping of Mandylor and Wright's characters) was explained away with a few throwaway lines.
Law made crossover appearances on episodes of Early Edition
and Walker, Texas Ranger
, the former preceding it and the latter following it in its Saturday time slot. Chuck Norris
's Walker character, Cordell Walker, also made an appearance as part of the two-part Martial Law/Walker, Texas Ranger crossover.
, and later New York City
, he is met with a clash in culture. He is also the mentor of Grace "Pei Pei" Chen, an undercover
officer. When American techniques do not work, Sammo employs some Chinese cop work to get the job done.
). He finds out that his disciple, Pei Pei, had infiltrated Lee Hei's criminal empire. His goal is to capture Lee Hei and end his criminal organization. Unfortunately, this plot line was unresolved and Season 1 ended in a cliffhanger
, although season two's premiere has Sammo alluding to Lee Hei's death (by way of accusing a one-shot villain of trying to avenge it). Dana Dickson (Tammy Lauren) was initially billed as a main character but left after only a few episodes; it was explained that she had moved to another police force to be closer to her family.
whose members include Law's long lost son. While Law decided to return to China in the last episode, a line of dialogue leaves open the possibility of a follow-up.
Season 2
* This episode's storyline was continued on the Walker, Texas Ranger
episode Day of Cleansing.
The show aired on Saturday nights throughout its run.
showing replays of the episodes from 2005–2007, from 2009 onwards Bravo have acquired the rights to show replays of the show. In France, Martial Law (Le Flic de Shanghaï) can be seen on M6
and W9
. It was previously broadcast on Britain's Channel 5 at 8pm on Sundays scoring high ratings in 98, Australia's Seven Network
in 1998, on ATV
in Hong Kong, on TV4 in Sweden and on TV3, Sky1 and Channel 4 in New Zealand. It was previously broadcast on Dubai based MBC 2
but can now be seen on MBC Action
. In Germany the series was broadcast on VOX. In Brazil, the series can be seen on Rede Bandeirantes
since November 2007 as Um Policial da Pesada ("A heavy-set cop").
In Hungary
the series aired on RTL Klub
as A harc törvénye ("The rules of engagement").
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
from 1998 to 2000, and was created by Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse is an AmericanEmmy Award winning screenwriter and producer, most famous as executive producer andscreenwriter for the American television series Lost for...
. The title character, Sammo Law, portrayed by Sammo Hung
Sammo Hung
Sammo Hung is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film producer and director, known for his work in many martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema...
, was a Chinese law officer and martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....
expert who came to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in search of a colleague and remains in the US.
The show was a surprise hit, making Hung the only East Asian headlining a prime-time network series in America. At the time, Hung was not fluent in English, and he reportedly recited some of his dialogue phonetically. In many scenes, Hung did not speak at all, making Martial Law perhaps the only US television series in history that featured so little dialogue from the lead character.
Cast
- Sammo HungSammo HungSammo Hung is a Hong Kong actor, martial artist, film producer and director, known for his work in many martial arts films and Hong Kong action cinema...
as Sammo Law (Seasons 1 and 2, all episodes) - Arsenio HallArsenio HallArsenio Hall is an American actor, comedian, and former talk show host. He is best known for his talk show The Arsenio Hall Show, which ran between 1989 and 1994, and his roles in the films Coming to America and Harlem Nights.Hall is also known for his appearance as Alan Thicke's sidekick on the...
as Terrell Parker (Seasons 1 and 2) - Kelly HuKelly HuKelly Ann Hu is an American actress and former fashion model. She was Miss Teen USA 1985 and Miss Hawaii USA 1993.-Early life:Hu was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the daughter of Juanita, an engineering drafter for Honolulu, and Herbert Hu, a salesman and exotic bird breeder; the two divorced during...
as Grace "Pei Pei" Chen (Seasons 1 and 2, all episodes) - Tammy LaurenTammy LaurenTammy Lauren is an American actress who has appeared in film and television. She starred in Wishmaster, portraying Alexandra Amberson, a young woman who accidentally awakens the Djinn, a powerful spirit more commonly known as a genie.-Career:To date, Wishmaster is the only feature film in which...
as Dana Dickson (Season 1) - Louis MandylorLouis MandylorLouis Mandylor is an Australian film and television actor.-Life and career:Mandylor was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the son of Greek immigrants Louise and Yannis Theodosopoulos, a taxi driver...
as Louis Malone (Season 1) - Tom WrightTom Wright (actor)Tom Wright is a television and theatre actor. He was born in Englewood, New Jersey and attended West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania....
as Benjamin Winship (Season 1) - Gretchen EgolfGretchen EgolfGretchen Egolf is an American film and television actress.Egolf grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she began acting in theatre as a child. After high school, she attended the Juilliard School for drama in New York and has been living and working in New York and Los Angeles ever since...
as Amy Dylan (Season 2)
Supporting cast
The cast endured turnover from the beginning. Detective Dana Dickson (played by Tammy LaurenTammy Lauren
Tammy Lauren is an American actress who has appeared in film and television. She starred in Wishmaster, portraying Alexandra Amberson, a young woman who accidentally awakens the Djinn, a powerful spirit more commonly known as a genie.-Career:To date, Wishmaster is the only feature film in which...
) exited the show after Episode 6, "Extreme Measures", as she moved away to live with "her parents" as noted on the following episode. Then on Episode 9, "How Sammo Got His Groove Back", Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall
Arsenio Hall is an American actor, comedian, and former talk show host. He is best known for his talk show The Arsenio Hall Show, which ran between 1989 and 1994, and his roles in the films Coming to America and Harlem Nights.Hall is also known for his appearance as Alan Thicke's sidekick on the...
joined the cast as Terrell Parker, a wisecracking former LAPD
Los Angeles Police Department
The Los Angeles Police Department is the police department of the city of Los Angeles, California. With just under 10,000 officers and more than 3,000 civilian staff, covering an area of with a population of more than 4.1 million people, it is the third largest local law enforcement agency in...
press liaison who began helping out Sammo and the gang on cases. The pairing of Hung and Hall as partners was similar to, albeit a bit less overtly comedic than, the partnership between Sammo's friend, Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan, SBS, MBE is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, director, producer, martial artist, screenwriter, entrepreneur, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons, and innovative stunts...
, and Chris Tucker
Chris Tucker
Christopher "Chris" Tucker is an American actor and comedian. He is best known for playing the role of Detective James Carter in the Rush Hour film series.-Early life:...
in the Rush Hour
Rush Hour (film series)
The Rush Hour film series is a series of martial arts/action-comedy films starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker, directed by Brett Ratner, and distributed by New Line Cinema...
feature films. At the end of the episode "Cop Out", when Sammo Law is driving through Los Angeles, a sign is seen which advertises Rush Hour, as the movie was released at the time of the episode.
Changes
New executive producers Lee GoldbergLee Goldberg
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter and producer, known for his work on several different TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk...
& William Rabkin took the helm at the beginning of the second season due to runaway production costs. They more or less pretended that the first season did not exist, retaining only the basic concept of a fish-out-of-water detective. Cast members Louis Mandylor
Louis Mandylor
Louis Mandylor is an Australian film and television actor.-Life and career:Mandylor was born in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, the son of Greek immigrants Louise and Yannis Theodosopoulos, a taxi driver...
and Tom Wright
Tom Wright (actor)
Tom Wright is a television and theatre actor. He was born in Englewood, New Jersey and attended West Chester University in West Chester, Pennsylvania....
were dropped. Gretchen Egolf
Gretchen Egolf
Gretchen Egolf is an American film and television actress.Egolf grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where she began acting in theatre as a child. After high school, she attended the Juilliard School for drama in New York and has been living and working in New York and Los Angeles ever since...
was brought in to play the unit's new leader, Amy Dylan, from the beginning of Season 2. Additionally, Parker's past in public relations was scrapped. The first season's cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...
ending (plus the dropping of Mandylor and Wright's characters) was explained away with a few throwaway lines.
Law made crossover appearances on episodes of Early Edition
Early Edition
Early Edition is an American television series that aired on CBS from September 28, 1996 to May 27, 2000. Set in the city of Chicago, Illinois, it follows the adventures of a man who mysteriously receives each Chicago Sun-Times newspaper the day before it is actually published, and who uses this...
and Walker, Texas Ranger
Walker, Texas Ranger
Walker, Texas Ranger is an American television action crime drama series created by Leslie Greif and Paul Haggis, and starring Chuck Norris as a member of the Texas Ranger Division. The show aired on CBS in the spring of 1993, with the first season consisting of three pilot episodes. Eight full...
, the former preceding it and the latter following it in its Saturday time slot. Chuck Norris
Chuck Norris
Carlos Ray "Chuck" Norris is an American martial artist and actor. After serving in the United States Air Force, he began his rise to fame as a martial artist and has since founded his own school, Chun Kuk Do...
's Walker character, Cordell Walker, also made an appearance as part of the two-part Martial Law/Walker, Texas Ranger crossover.
Story
The basic storyline is that Sammo Law, a well-respected Chinese cop, is transferred to America. As he works for the police department, fighting crime in Los AngelesLos Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, and later New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, he is met with a clash in culture. He is also the mentor of Grace "Pei Pei" Chen, an undercover
Undercover
Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...
officer. When American techniques do not work, Sammo employs some Chinese cop work to get the job done.
Season 1 plot
Sammo is sent by the Chinese government to apprehend an old nemesis, Lee Hei (Tzi MaTzi Ma
Tzi Ma is a Chinese American actor who has made numerous appearances in American films and TV series.-Life and career:Ma was born in Hong Kong...
). He finds out that his disciple, Pei Pei, had infiltrated Lee Hei's criminal empire. His goal is to capture Lee Hei and end his criminal organization. Unfortunately, this plot line was unresolved and Season 1 ended in a cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...
, although season two's premiere has Sammo alluding to Lee Hei's death (by way of accusing a one-shot villain of trying to avenge it). Dana Dickson (Tammy Lauren) was initially billed as a main character but left after only a few episodes; it was explained that she had moved to another police force to be closer to her family.
Season 2 plot
After Winship's retirement and Louis's transfer to the NYPD, Law decides to stay in Los Angeles and is now partnered with Pei Pei. The department also gets a new captain, Amy Dylan, who thinks that the Chinese way of police work is not the best way of handling things. In addition, there are revelations of a secret societySecret society
A secret society is a club or organization whose activities and inner functioning are concealed from non-members. The society may or may not attempt to conceal its existence. The term usually excludes covert groups, such as intelligence agencies or guerrilla insurgencies, which hide their...
whose members include Law's long lost son. While Law decided to return to China in the last episode, a line of dialogue leaves open the possibility of a follow-up.
Episode list
Season 1| # | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
Season 2
| # | Title | Director | Writer |
|---|---|---|---|
Walker, Texas Ranger
Walker, Texas Ranger is an American television action crime drama series created by Leslie Greif and Paul Haggis, and starring Chuck Norris as a member of the Texas Ranger Division. The show aired on CBS in the spring of 1993, with the first season consisting of three pilot episodes. Eight full...
episode Day of Cleansing.
Ratings
| Season | U.S. ratings | Network | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1998-99 | 11.00 million | CBS | #57 |
| 2 | 1999-00 | 10.08 million | CBS | #59 |
The show aired on Saturday nights throughout its run.
International broadcasters
In the Republic of Ireland and the UK, Martial Law has been broadcast on Bravo throughout the week. In Britain the show used to air on Five from 1998–2005, then on ITV4ITV4
ITV4 is a British television station which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels Ltd, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV network. The channel has a male-oriented line-up, including sport, cop shows and US comedies and dramas, as well as classic ITV action...
showing replays of the episodes from 2005–2007, from 2009 onwards Bravo have acquired the rights to show replays of the show. In France, Martial Law (Le Flic de Shanghaï) can be seen on M6
Métropole 6
M6, also known as Metropole television, is the most profitable private national French TV channel and the third most watched television network in the French-speaking world...
and W9
W9 (French Television Channel)
W9 is a French television network which is available through digital terrestrial television TNT, satellite and ADSL. It is a subsidiary of M6; the name W9 has been selected for the channel because "W9" is the mirror image of "M6"....
. It was previously broadcast on Britain's Channel 5 at 8pm on Sundays scoring high ratings in 98, Australia's Seven Network
Seven Network
The Seven Network is an Australian television network owned by Seven West Media Limited. It dates back to 4 November 1956, when the first stations on the VHF7 frequency were established in Melbourne and Sydney.It is currently the second largest network in the country in terms of population reach...
in 1998, on ATV
Asia Television Limited
Asia Television Limited is one of the two free-to-air television broadcasters in Hong Kong, the other being rival Television Broadcasts Limited . It launched in 1957 under the name Rediffusion Television as the first television station in Hong Kong...
in Hong Kong, on TV4 in Sweden and on TV3, Sky1 and Channel 4 in New Zealand. It was previously broadcast on Dubai based MBC 2
MBC 2
MBC 2, formerly Channel 2, is a free-to-air 24-hour movie channel owned by the MBC Group. The channel has broadcast as a satellite TV channel since 2002...
but can now be seen on MBC Action
MBC Action
MBC Action is a free-to-air satellite TV channel that screens films and television programs from the action genre. Programs are subtitled in Standard Arabic. It is available in the Arab World by satellites BADR4 and Nilesat 102. It launched on March 5, 2007 at 6:00 P.M...
. In Germany the series was broadcast on VOX. In Brazil, the series can be seen on Rede Bandeirantes
Rede Bandeirantes
Rede Bandeirantes , officially nicknamed Band or Band Network, is a television network from Brazil, based in São Paulo. Part of the Grupo Bandeirantes de Comunicação , it aired for the first time in 1967...
since November 2007 as Um Policial da Pesada ("A heavy-set cop").
In Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
the series aired on RTL Klub
RTL Klub
RTL Klub is a television station owned by RTL Group and broadcast in Hungary. It was one of Hungary's first commercial TV channels and was only two days after the main rival TV2 to begin broadcasting.-About RTL Klub:...
as A harc törvénye ("The rules of engagement").
DVD releases
As of November 2010, there is no news about a release of Martial Law on DVD. According to TVShowsOnDVD.com, DVD releases have yet to be available despite the push and petitions of fans.External links
- Martial Law Television Show: Martial Law content and media
- Fan page
- Martial Law scripts by executive producers Lee Goldberg & William Rabkin