American Born Chinese TV Series - S1
                                                                           
Director: Various
Year: 2023
Rating: 7.5
I don't generally if ever review a TV show but this one has Michelle Yeoh and Daniel Wu as main characters and I have been wanting to catch up with a lot of the work of Michelle Yeoh in TV and film post 2004 when she appeared in her last Hong Kong film, Silver Hawk. She has been in a lot! Way more than I thought. A lot of TV shows and a lot of films. Some of them though are barely guest appearances such as in Mechanic: Resurrection and some in dreadful films like Mummy: The Tomb of the Emperor. But also many that you are likely never to have heard of such as Far North, Sunshine, The Children of Huang Shi, Purple Mountain, Final Recipe, Morgan, Last Christmas, Boss Level, The School for Good and Evil. And plenty of TV shows - she is great in Star Trek: Discovery but she has also been in a season of Strike Back, a season of Marco Polo, episodes of The Witcher: Blood Origin, a series going on now named The Brothers Sun. And this is not to mention the films that are well known - Crazy Rich Asians, Shang Chi, Fearless, Everywhere Everything All At Once, A Haunting in Venice, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2, Memoirs of a Geisha  - and others. She has been super busy in her post Hong Kong career. I just want to get to some of these. Because it is Michelle Yeoh who was one of the main reasons along with Chow Yun-fat and Brigitte Lin to suck me into the depths of Hong Kong films many years ago.



I decided to start with this TV show. Only 8 episodes of 30 minutes each. Easy. Halfway through though I found out that S2 was cancelled which was a bummer because I really enjoyed it. Put out by Disney. Bastards. But at the same time, it is kind of amazing that they attempted this. A nearly all Asian cast, all the production crew had Asian names and they introduce the Monkey King to American audiences. And Piggy and The Goddess of Mercy. All taking place in an American high school. Maybe more than audiences could keep up with. They throw a lot at the viewer - a Chinese teenager trying to make his way through school, his parents constantly fighting, a potential Gweilo girlfriend, making the soccer team - and into this comes a new kid in school who tells him that he is the son of Sun Wukong (Daniel Wu) on a mission to find the Fourth Scroll that will stop a rebellion to overthrow the Jade Emperor. And he has stolen the magical staff from his father.



Advising him from time to time is the Goddess of Mercy (Yeoh) and another God, the Bull Demon King, comes down to take the staff away from him. A little more than most teenagers can handle.  He is told by the son that he is the guide to the Fourth Scroll. Ok. Probably too many subplots such as an old TV star (Ke Huy Kuan) popping up. Never quite sure why. It is cute and sweet, at times touching and there is a lot of action wirework. The end leads you to next season as he is visited by Princess Iron Fan. But it will never come. It is based on a manga by Gene Luen Yang, but not sure if it was a great choice of a title for a TV show about Chinese Celestial Gods! I would guess that most people thought it was going to be about Chinese immigrants and their adjusting to America. It has a touch of that but is way more.