Kelvin's Yu's new Disney+ show _American Born Chinese_ is a breath of fresh air from Disney. It borrows from its source material, a well-respected graphic novel by Gene Luen Yang, and like all good "wuxia" fiction cultivates and improves itself for the contemporary audience. The original novel divides its story between the Monkey King, second-generation teen Jin Wang and a buffoonish racist caricature Chin-Kee; with the TV show it follows similar emotional beats but deviates fairly early on. Here we have Sun Wukong's son taking precedence as the Monkey King on Earth (yes, this works as a sequel to _Journey to the West_!) and a soccer-loving secret-nerd Jin. But the biggest change is the racist stereotype Chin-kee being replaced with Ke Huy Quan's character Jamie Yao who reflects on his role as an Asian stereotype in a 1990s sitcom. This takes the weight of the racist narrative opposed to the novel which was set in 2006, but it's brilliantly done and all three story strands fit well together just like in the original story.

But there are more noticeable differences. One distinct one is that Michelle Yeoh's Guanyin (Goddess of Mercy) replaces the role of the original author's Christian Chinese God (though Chinese Christianity does feature) which I think works far better for the overall frame story. The other is that on top of this being a coming-of-age genre, it's also now a martial arts story. Taking inspiration from both wuxia (martial hero) and xianxia (heavenly hero) subgenres, the show uses a mixture of tropes common to both, for example, we have characters using "weightlessness" (that's your 'flying' and wire-fu) as well as magical weaponry from Heaven, but also grounds itself in hand-to-hand combat too. The action is expertly shot for a Western production and allows the viewer to follow it with ease. This is not necessarily going to work for every Western viewer, but for those willing to give it a go - it's excellent introduction to the wuxia genre and Chinese storytelling. More of this, please, Disney..

That said - it's way too short with only eight episodes. A lot more could have been fleshed out in some characters' motives. Also, comparisons will of course be made to this being _Everything Everywhere All At Once_-lite. The cast and theme are both similar (Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan all feature) and therefore might come across as a quick Disney cash-grab in some small part but that's surface level. If I was going to compare this to any other show, I'd say this was Disney+'s take on Netflix's ever-popular _Cobra Kai_ (with a fantastical twist). Hopefully, we'll get a few more seasons of this to match that show!