Kung Fu star Olivia Liang is ready to show the world that ‘Asian women are not to be messed with’ in new CW series
The series, which started airing on American television network The CW on April 7, follows a young Chinese-American woman, Nicky Shen, as she returns home to San Francisco after three years at a remote monastery in China, only to find her family has moved on without her.
“She has to reconcile the new Nicky with the Nicky she left behind. She’s figuring out how to use the voice that she’s found back in a place where she felt like she didn’t have a voice,” Liang said. “It’s an apology tour while not apologising for what she did.”
Shen left the US for all the normal university kid reasons: her parents didn’t understand her and she didn’t know what she was doing in life. What she eventually finds in China isn’t normal: a merciless assassin who murders her Shaolin mentor Pei-ling (Vanessa Kai). And what she comes home to isn’t normal either: her parents, Jin (Tzi Ma) and Mei-li (Tan Kheng Hua) are under the thumb of a mysterious gang called the Triad after borrowing money to keep their restaurant alive. Her family’s troubles, more than anything, finally give Shen the purpose she’s been seeking.
The martial arts are deliriously fun – a chaotic choreography of kicks and flips that Liang estimated she did about 70 per cent of, with the rest left up to her stunt double. But more impressive than that is the honesty of Kung Fu itself – embracing rather than hiding its culture.
Who would have thought that it would be so relevant and so necessary to humanise us, to empower us, to give us a voice
The series, created by Lost writer Christina M. Kim, is a modern-day adaptation of the original Kung Fu series, which ran for three seasons from 1972 to 1975 with David Carradine playing Shaolin priest and martial arts expert Kwai Chang Caine who returns to “the West”.
In the 2021 version of Kung Fu, “the West” means San Francisco, but the show finds life and colour in the city’s Chinatown district. Shen’s goal isn’t to just protect her family, but her entire community.
Less than a month after eight people, including six Asian women, were fatally shot at three massage parlours around Atlanta, Georgia, celebrating her community feels right for Liang.
“It really hits different that we’re premiering in April 2021 with what’s going on in the world,” she said. “Who would have thought that it would be so relevant and so necessary to humanise us, to empower us, to give us a voice. We always knew our show was going to be important, but it’s so much more important now to see Asian women be unapologetic, take up space, be strong, have a voice and be unafraid to use it.”
Growing up, Liang never saw anyone who looked like her on TV. Now, she said, she has the chance to be that familiar face for the next generation.
“It’s empowering to show some strength and show that Asian women are not to be messed with,” she said. “It’s about time we showed a woman being able to kick a** in this capacity.”
Want more stories like this? Sign up here. Follow STYLE on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter.
- Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, the martial arts series follows a Chinese-American woman who returns home after living in a Shaolin monastery in China
- Lead actress Olivia Liang says the TV show ‘hits different’ amid racism in the US: ‘It’s empowering to show that Asian women are not to be messed with’