The live-action remake of Avatar: The Last Airbender is now officially in production, and we also have some extra casting news, including who’s playing everyone’s favorite uncle.
According to Entertainment Weekly, the entire cast has begun shooting in Vancouver in a new facility that uses fancy LED panels to create impressively realistic backdrops, similar to what Disney used for The Mandalorian.
“We’re thrilled to start production on this incredible project, and we’re especially excited to work with the technology-benders at PXO to create the wondrous world of Avatar: The Last Airbender using the most advanced techniques available to filmmakers anywhere in the world,” showrunner Albert Kim said in a statement.
Fancy technologies are well and good, but what’s really exciting is the additional casting news. We already know who many of the main characters are, but we didn’t know before today who was playing Iroh, the retired Fire Nation general and uncle to the very angry Prince Zuko. Today, Netflix announced that Paul Sun-Hyung Lee of The Mandalorian and Kim’s Convenience will take on the role.
We also found out that Lim Kay Siu will play Gyatso, a mentor to young Aang, and that Ken Leung (Old, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) will be Commander Zhao, a Fire Nation officer who butts heads with Zuko. The three join the already-announced cast of Gordon Cormier as Aang, Kiawentiio as Katara, Ian Ousley as Sokka, Dallas Liu as Zuko, and Daniel Dae Kim as Fire Lord Ozai. You can see some of them above in their lovely cast photo.
The live-action series faced some ups and downs before it went into production. The original creators of animated series—Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko—left the show last summer because, according to them, they couldn’t control the creative direction of the series.
While the two leaving understandably worried Avatar fans, we still have to wait until the show drops on Netflix to see how live-action version pans out. In the meantime, you can watched the animated Avatar as well as the sequel series The Legend of Korra on the streaming platform.
