High school is hard enough. Do magical martial arts battles have to be a part of it?
If you’re the protagonist of a teen supernatural TV show such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Smallville” or “Teen Wolf,” yes, that is your lot in your (fictional) life. Studying for a math test can be delayed by fighting apocalyptic evil. Secret identities complicate high school cliques. Demons crash the prom. And of course, all that mysticism and magic is just a metaphor for the hell of growing up.
Joining that long line of distinguished series this week is Disney+’s “American Born Chinese” (streaming Wednesdays, ★★★ out of four), an adaptation of Gene Luen Yang’s 2006 graphic novel that brings the heavenly battle of gods crashing to Earth ― and into the life of a sullen teen boy.
A G-rated dramedy in which elaborate and magical kung fu battles coincide with tryouts for junior varsity soccer teams, “Chinese” is a cuddly, Disneyfied version of those great supernatural teen dramas. It is the kind of show Disney+ should really have been making all along: Too mature and expensive for Disney Channel but too family-friendly (and too expensive) for CW. Populated by an all-star Oscar-winning cast of Asian stars, and featuring universal themes of adolescence and fitting in, “Chinese” is one of Disney+’s best offerings so far. And all without “Marvel” or “Star Wars” in the title.
Jin Wang (Ben Wang) doesn’t want to stand out. The son of Chinese immigrants, he shies away from his heritage and other Asian kids at his school and just wants to play soccer, make friends with popular kids, ask his lab partner out on a date and get through high school without making waves. So Jin is less than pleased when new student Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu), who seems to be an immigrant from China, shows up and attaches himself to Jin. But Jin has emigrated even farther − he’s actually from Heaven, the son of a god named Sun Wukong, aka “The Monkey King” (Daniel Wu), and is on a quest to save his homeland and people from a villain who’s out to overthrow his father.
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Helped by Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy (Michelle Yeoh), Wei-Chen believes Jin is the key to saving his home. But moody teen boys make terribly unreliable partners in heroics, and Jin’s flakiness proves problematic in Wei-Chin’s epic quest.
The supernatural elements of “Chinese” are brought to life beautifully, playing on aesthetics from Chinese folklore, comics and animation to create worlds and scenes that pop off the screen. Similarly, the action sequences are as good as in any theatrical film. Yeoh is given some gravity-defying moves that are halfway between fighting and dancing. But “Chinese” has a lot of substance to back up its fancy style, in particular with Jin’s internal battle over assimilating into his largely white American high school or embracing his immigrant parents and Chinese community.
The series gets at the nuances of the Asian American experience, especially exemplified by a fake TV show within the show, a ’90s sitcom with an Asian character that is full of racial stereotypes and problematic catchphrases. (The character is played by Ke Huy Quan, who reunites with his “Everything Everywhere All At Once” co-stars Yeoh, and later in the season, Stephanie Hsu).
“Chinese” is particularly welcome because there are so few shows like it on TV right now, made for an underserved audience of tweens and early teens (and even more underserved, Asian teens and tweens). And considering CW just announced plans to move away from young-adult programming, Disney+ seems like the only place where kids can work out their problems with help from magic. The creative success of “Chinese” might be a good omen for the streamer’s upcoming adaptation of hugely popular fantasy series”Percy Jackson and the Olympians,” which has yet to find an adaptation that satisfies its fans.
But Disney’s recent decision to excise similar tween programming “Mighty Ducks: Game Changers” and “Big Shots” from its platform altogether does not bode well for anything on the streamer that isn’t about superheroes or Jedis. Although “Chinese” does have a leg up over those two shows − it’s both highly enjoyable and well made.
