AMERICAN BORN CHINESE (2023) – Something original and creative. Great fun.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Hollywood appears to be doing its part in being inclusive and providing opportunities for Asian performers to showcase their abilities. American Born Chinese (ABC) follows on the heals of the recent great series Beef. This 8-episode series, like Beef, has a predominantly Asian cast, but unlike Beef, it is more family friendly, with its mythological spin on the legendary Chinese folk stories about the Monkey King intertwined with the present-day life of Jin Wang (Ben Wang), an ABC teenager struggling to balance his home and school lives.
Despite its lighthearted and seemingly trivial premise of growing pains, ABC successfully integrates themes such as racial discrimination, stereotyping, school bullying, friendship, and self-acceptance into its plot. On top of that, there’s some nifty display of martial arts demonstration tossed in for good measure. The filmmakers also took chances by having much of the dialogue spoken in Mandarin without fear of alienating the non-Chinese speaking audience. One episode was nearly entirely in Mandarin and moved us away from the main tale to tell us about an occurrence that happened in the past! This is a refreshing technique that not only makes the series feel unique, but also makes the characters seem more intriguing.
The cast for the series is outstanding! It not only stars four of the cast members of Everything Everywhere All At Once (Michelle Yeoh, Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu, and James Hong), but it also stars Daniel Wu as the Monkey King and Chin Han. Malaysians will also be thrilled to learn that three of the cast members are Malaysian-born Chinese (Michelle Yeoh, Yann Yann Yeo, and Ronny Chieng). Yann Yann plays Jin Wang’s (Ben Wang) overprotective mother like a pro, while Ronny Chieng was quietly humorous as the half-drunk Ji Gong (Mad Monk). Of course, Michelle Yeoh gets to play a legendary heroine, none other than the Guan Yin (Goddess of Mercy).
Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves playing their roles and their zeal and high spirit is infectious which in turns gets translated to entertainment and fun for the whole family. The characters are generally likeable, and inoffensive, and it promotes positive values within the modern day environment. Like Beef, it showcases the many Asian talents that we have in the industry today.