When the American Born Chinese show bowed on Disney+ last summer, it had good timing. Everything Everywhere All at Once had recently won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and here was something similar: an action comedy about Chinese-American life. What’s more, it featured, in prominent supporting roles, two of the film’s Oscar-winners, actors Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. The reviews were positive. So will it be coming back for more?
The answer, sadly, is no, at least for now. Per NBC News, while Disney was happy with the series, viewership, they said, was not large enough to greenlight another round of episodes. The team behind the show still have hope for more, as they’re shopping it around to other outlets.
The show was based on Gene Luen Yang’s 2006 graphic novel of the same name, which itself was inspired in part by the Chinese folk tales contained within the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. It followed a 10th grader (Ben Wang) who is tasked with showing around a new exchange student (Jimmy Liu). He finds himself embroiled in a battle between mythical Chinese gods played by Yeoh and Daniel Wu. As for Quan, he played a character inspired by himself: an actor known for a role done in his youth, modeled after his Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom sidekick Short Round.
You can watch the first season of American Born Chinese on Disney+.
(Via NBC News)