While the talent behind American Born Chinese has been stacked from the get-go, the cast and crew for the Disney+ adaptation of Gene Luen Yang’s graphic novel have only become more acclaimed since cameras stopped rolling. Filmmaker Destin Daniel Cretton, who already had the highly-praised Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings to his name, cemented himself as a directorial juggernaut when Marvel Studios tapped him to helm Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Recurring star Stephanie Hsu received dozens of award nominations for her performances as Joy Wang and Jobu Tupaki in Everything Everywhere All at Once. Main cast members Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan took home Oscars for their roles in that same movie.
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Speaking to ComicBook.com, American Born Chinese producer Melvin Mar responded to the show’s newfound accolades.
“We’re winning the Hollywood lottery. I think it speaks to just Asian Americans and people in the industry,” Mar said. “There are people really doing a lot of good work, whether behind the scenes or in front of the camera, and I think it’s all something to be celebrated, especially this month, AAPI Month. It’s great. It’s really exciting.”
Author and executive producer Gene Luen Yang shared Mar’s sentiments, admitting that his cast and crew’s career run outside of American Born Chinese has been completely unpredictable.
“It’s pretty insane, right? It’s pretty insane,” Yang added. “There’s no way we could have predicted any of this. It’s been shocking for me to see. The whole thing has been a shock.”
The momentum surge thanks to recent Academy Award wins comes at the best time for American Born Chinese. Yang penned this graphic novel back in 2006 and spent over a decade being developed for a live-action adaptation. Once Disney+ gave the straight-to-series order in Fall 2021, everything began going right for American Born Chinese. Cretton joined just one month after Shang-Chi reinvigorated the domestic box office while Yeoh and Quan were brought in about six weeks before their Everything Everywhere All at Once year kicked off.
Yeoh and Quan are set to play Guanyin and Freddy Wong, respectively, within Jin Wang’s (Ben Wang) unexpected stumble into a war between gods from Chinese mythology.
All eight episodes of American Born Chinese are available to stream on Disney+ on Wednesday, May 24th.
