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*Premise spoilers.*
Seeing the trailer for this show made me nervous. Obviously, it was filled with all manner of talented actors, I’m a fan of Destin Daniel Cretton, and it looked like it was going to be good. But it didn’t look like it was going to be American Born Chinese, and that gave me pause. Fortunately, although the series is a very different animal than the graphic novel, it uses its new story to explore much of the same themes.
Jin has a hard enough time finding his place as one of the few Asian American kids at his school; he does not need the principal pairing him up with a kid who’s just arrived from China. But Wei-Chen defies Jin’s expectations in multiple ways. First, while he’s kind of dorky and the polar opposite of the “run-of-the-mill regular guy” persona Jin is trying to cultivate, Wei-Chen is actually much more confident than Jin is—he knows who he is and doesn’t fret over that. Even more significantly, he is in fact the son of the legendary Monkey King, and he's come from Heaven in pursuit of a great quest. And he’s convinced that Jin is the only one who can help him achieve it.
It's the mystical/action side that really veers from the graphic novel, where the Monkey King sections serve as an analogy for Asian Americans who think they have to change who they are to win the approval of white American society. The Monkey King’s story runs parallel to Jin’s (and Danny’s—more on that later,) but they don’t intersect in the same way they do here, where Wei-Chen tries to draw Jin into his epic quest. From the trailer, I feared that this was all the show was going to be, that the coming-of-age and identity themes weren’t going to be nearly as important as the mystical adventure.
The adventure part of the story is definitely there. We have gods and wire fu and prophetic dreams, and there’s a big third-act showdown in the season finale. But crucially, we never drop Jin’s story of struggling to feel comfortable in his own skin. The opportunity to help Wei-Chen on his quest is as cool as anything in the manga Jin grew up reading, but he’s continually distracted from the mission by his desire to get in good with the guys on the soccer team or impress the girl he has a crush on. The mystical elements add plenty of cool action to the show, but they also serve as a vehicle to help Jin work through some of his confusion and figure out who he actually wants to be.
There are also a lot of changes to the Danny story—in fact, that entire plot is basically gone. However, it’s replaced by an ongoing thread that accomplishes the same goal and explores the same theme in a much more grounded way. Instead of bringing in “Chin-Kee,” the embarrassing cousin whose character design is straight out of an old-timey anti-Chinese propaganda poster, we get Freddy Wong. In the show, an old sitcom called Beyond Repair has just hit streaming and is enjoying a resurgence in popularity, and Freddy, the Asian comic-relief character, has become a meme. Cringey scenes from the sitcom seem to follow Jin wherever he goes, and the second half of the season addresses problematic old shows like this head-on.
The cast is topnotch, handling the many different angles of the plot with ease and making it all feel cohesive. Ben Wang is a solid everyman as Jin, an insecure kid who’s aspiring to be basic and isn’t sure about this much greater destiny that’s being rolled out for him. He’s joined by Jimmy Liu as Wei-Chen, who’s equal parts endearingly earnest and convincingly badass. The two boys play off each other beautifully; if the show is given a second season, I’m most looking forward to seeing more of them together.
It’s all the more impressive to see how well these young actors anchor the show given all the powerhouse talent that surrounds them. Daniel Wu (Sunny from Into the Badlands!) is alternately stoic and sly as the Monkey King. I can’t say enough about how much I adore Michelle Yeoh as Guanyin, the goddess of compassion—I didn’t realize I needed Yeoh as a goofy, bubbly goddess auntie in my life, but it turns out I really do! Both her and Wu, naturally, get some choice opportunities to throw down. Ke Huy Quan pitches the Freddy Wong sitcom scenes just right, and he has the chops to navigate the nuance brought to that side of the plot as the season goes on. The series also features appearances from a very game Ronny Chieng and a fabulous Stephanie Hsu, the latter of whom is only in one episode but radiates her character with every pore.
Warnings
Thematic elements, violence, and mild language.
