How American Born Chinese brought cultural specificity to the screen

"Do you know who you are? You are worlds clashing into each other. You are all the pieces merging into one."

Worlds collide in American Born Chinese, Disney+'s modern retelling of Chinese mythology and characters introduced in the classic 16th century novel Journey to the West. In Kelvin Yu's spellbinding series adaptation of Gene Luen Yang's 2006 graphic novel of the same name, Sun Wei-Chen (Jim Liu), son of Sun Wukong, also known as the Monkey King (Daniel Wu), stops an uprising in the heavenly realm with the help of his human friend Jin Wang (Ben Wang).

Between action sequences in the heavenly realm and Earth, the series also packs an emotional punch. Identities, too, collide as Jin navigates his journey to self-acceptance. Feeling neither truly Chinese nor American and like a tourist in both worlds, Jin does his best to juggle his social life with home life — the latter sometimes complicated by warring but loving parents played by Yeo Yann Yann and Chin Han, who provide much of the show's emotional beats as hardworking, headstrong immigrants chasing that American dream.

Carlos Lopez-Calleja/Disney Yeo Yann Yann, Chin Han, and Ben Wang on 'American Born Chinese'

Also affecting, though, are the tiny yet mighty glimpses of cultural specificities familiar to other American born Chinese: Mama Wang's herbal powders and chicken feet soup (a delicacy in Taiwan, she informs her son at the dinner table); Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy's (Michelle Yeoh) hoarded soy sauce packets while she's moonlighting as human on Earth; the stale 2-year-old candy in the sweets bowl at the Chinese restaurant nestled in an unassuming strip mall; the karaoke sequence, tambourine in tow; the Teresa Teng, eternal queen of Asian pop, needle drops.

"A lot of it came from our own upbringings," Yang, an executive producer on the series, tells EW of the influences.

"Gene said something earlier today that resonated with me," Melvin Mar, also an executive producer, says. "Which was, the graphic novel started out as a me story for him, and in the adaptation of it for screen it became a we story. I hand it to Gene and Kelvin. It's completely them, where they were able to figure out the transition from graphic novel to television and build a nucleus [where] anybody who [came and worked] on this was able to bring their own thing to it, too."

Carlos Lopez-Calleja/Disney Michelle Yeoh and Jim Liu on 'American Born Chinese'

That even included production design, with the cast and crew foraging their own homes for props. "Michelle and Cindy [Chao, production designer] just mined from their own houses," Mar shares. "They actually went to their parents' house to find things and bring things on. I actually have stuff on the set that was from my parents' house as well. My father's picture is [on] the altar someplace. Everyone brought a piece of something, whether physically or emotionally."

Yang adds, "A lot of stuff doesn't show up on screen. I'll give you one example: By the sink, they have an empty tofu container with a sponge in it. We all know that! We all know what that is!"

The soundtrack, too, mines from the duo's upbringing. Teng — a beloved Asian pop diva idolized for her ability to belt out classics across Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, and English — is sprinkled throughout. She croons on the radio during Jin's commute with mom Christine ("Tian Mi Mi," roughly translated to "Sweet on You") and serves as Christine's karaoke song of choice at the strip mall restaurant ("I Only Care About You").

Disney+ Daniel Wu on 'American Born Chinese'

Yann, a karaoke enthusiast herself, recalls of filming Christine's moving song sequence to Teng, which came after a heated argument with husband Simon (Han): "It was a very difficult time because I lost my voice. I was recovering from Covid and my throat was in pain when I was singing. They had to go one key lower so I could do it."

"I mean, she's like a Chinese Barbra Streisand," Mar says of the pop icon. "That's all I heard growing up. There was something about when we were shooting. I could never get that out of my head. I kept saying to Kelvin and Destin and Gene, 'We got to put Teresa Teng in. It's not going to be cheap, but we can do it.' We had to. It was one of those things. Every single time I see that transition from them fighting and [Jin] putting on the headphones to the transition in the car, I tear up."

With the series now out in the world, Yang and Mar hope viewers feel seen.

Disney+ Ben Wang and Jim Liu on 'American Born Chinese'

"Telling stories about Asian Americans is a way of telling Asian Americans that their lives are worthy of story, that they're three-dimensional characters, that what they go through is important," Yang says. "When I was a kid, most of the time, we just weren't anywhere in the story. And then whenever we showed up, we were either the villain or the comic relief. We were two-dimensional. So for us to be represented as three-dimensional is kind of an acknowledgement of our humanity."

Mar agrees, adding, "I spent most of my adolescence feeling ostracized or unseen. Now that I'm a father and I have a 9-year-old daughter, I realized that she's never had to feel that way — specifically, the way I did, just being the only Chinese kid around or not having anybody that looked like me on screen. Her whole life, she's been able to experience that. I would love for some Chinese kid, or any kid out there, to connect to it in that way."

American Born Chinese is streaming on Disney+.

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