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REVIEW: Four of the key cast members from this year’s Oscars-dominating Everything Everywhere All at Once feature in an entertaining and engrossing new teen drama.
Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and James Hong reunite for American Born Chinese (which debuts on Disney+ on the evening of Wednesday, May 24), an eight-part adaptation of Gene Luen Yang’s 2006 graphic novel of the same name.
Aiming to do for Chinese mythology what the Percy Jackson movies did for Greek gods, this sees an ordinary California high schooler’s life complicated by the arrival of a mysterious new exchange student.
As if Jin Wang (Cho Can Dunk’s Ben Wang) didn’t already have enough problems. While his parents constantly bicker at home, his best friend Anuj (Mahi Alam) is now giving him the cold shoulder after a falling out during the summer holidays.
Plus, the timing of him being forced to have Sun Wei-Chen (Ching Liu) shadow him couldn’t be worse – called out of class just as his crush Amelia (Sydney Taylor) was contemplating being his science lab partner and forced to cancel a vital lunch-hang with his prospective football team-mates.
Already frustrated, things go from bad to worse for Jing when a moment of clumsiness becomes a meme and an ill–advised attempt at revenge results in him being booted out of trials. So he’s in no mood to entertain Wei-Len’s request for help in finding “some scroll”.
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New high school exchange student Sun Wei-Chen (Ching Liu) is protected by the seemingly all-powerful Guanyin (Michelle Liu) in American Born Chinese.
But having made the leap from the heavenly realm while absconding with his father’s magical staff, Wei-Len is still convinced that Jin is the one mortal who can assist in finding the vital document that will stop the Bull Demon’s Autumn Equinox uprising.
However, while his guardian, the goddess of Mercy Guanyin (Yeoh) offers him protection, dark forces are gathering – and preparing to make their move.
While there’s definitely a few thematic and stylistic similarities between this series and one of last year’s break-out Disney+ teen show Ms. Marvel (right down to a character’s love of Bon Jovi), there’s also a refreshing down-to-earthness about the main protagonist and his problems, as well some skilful weaving of Journey to the West-inspired Chinese mythology into the mix.
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American Born Chinese offers plenty of memorable set pieces, a few thrilling fight sequences, good humour and enough drama to make it absorbing, bingeable fun for the whole family.
The cadre of eclectic and eccentric escapees from the Heavenly Realm (and the various forms of facial fuzz) will definitely evoke memories for those old enough to remember the classic Sunday afternoon staple Monkey (or weirdly, Michael J. Fox’s mid-’80s high school comedy Teen Wolf), while Yeoh looks to be having a ball as the seemingly all-powerful Guanyin, whether it’s taking advantage of a buffet or struggling to piece together a coffee table (“I will not be defeated by Swedish furniture,” she shouts defiantly, as she wrestles with its construction).
Created by Bob’s Burgers writer Kelvin Yu, with Shangi Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ helmer Destin Daniel Cretton among the directors, American Born Chinese offers plenty of memorable set pieces (Jin singing and dancing to Despacito while wearing a Pikachu onesie is a particular early highlight), a few thrilling fight sequences, good humour and enough drama to make it absorbing, bingeable fun for the whole family.
American Born Chinese begins streaming on Disney+ on the evening of May 24.
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