A celestial party that echoes our earthbound ambitions. This week we crash the FOURTH episode of American Born Chinese, “Make a Splash.” The show hits its first season midpoint with an episode that detours in setting, structure, and story. Just when we’ve gotten used to the intertwined plotlines of teenager Jin Wang (Ben Wang), Monkey Prince Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu), Jin’s parents (Yann Yann Yeo and Simon Wang), and the uprising in the heavens contested by Guanyin (Michelle Yeoh), the Monkey King (Daniel Wu), and the Bull Demon (Leonard Wu)…
Spoilers ahead!
1. From Jin’s Bed to the Heavens
This is the lowest-rated episode on IMDB (I have no idea how those scores are devised and give them little credence), but I personally applaud the risks the creators took on this one. The episode seems quite intentionally situated here, after we’ve had three episodes to meet characters and care about the mounting drama. Director Peng Zhang was fight coordinator on Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and a big-name stunt performer, but directs this only episode so far without a clear martial arts scene. And the episode’s writers are credited, like all other episodes, as Gene Yang (the graphic novel’s creator) and Kelvin Yu (showrunner), along with Aaron Izek. The creators involved suggest this is no mere aside or breather but central to the story: central as 4th of 8 episodes, central in themes, and central to the pace and purpose of the season arc.
But audiences can be forgiven for wondering what happened to the main story, as we open with Jin waking up post-soccer-team-hazing, his parents gearing up for the day’s ambitions, and Jin soaking in his classmates’ ovations for his (and Wei-Chen’s) masterful toilet-paper job of their rival school. The Easter egg that Jin has “Spawn” bedside might hint at the devil’s bargains and metaphysical wrangling of the rest of the episode. But after this Jintroduction and the upcoming moment with Wei-Chen and SunWuKong the Monkey King, we spend nearly the WHOLE rest of the episode in a new world and tone. Specifically, the show’s creators cloak some background mythology of the Monkey King from Chinese classics with the TV-show trappings of game shows and soap operas that may look vaguely 70s-80s to US viewers, but Chinese Americans will immediately recognize as the sort of production for Chinese-language game shows and classical-era soap operas of our childhoods. It’s a fascinating changeup that, although I loved in its artistry, I could also imagine alienating viewers without that same background. But hey, if you don’t know, you don’t know. To me, the gambit paid off.
2. “I Never Want to Be Like You”
In fact, where we spend most of this episode is somewhat akin (if not matched in detail) to how Yang opens his original graphic novel: monkey’s mischief and confidence lead to his ascension as Sun WuKong, Monkey King, among the court of gods and celestial beings, the first act of Journey to the West. In this telling, the story is a flashback for WuKong, whom the show has made the parent figure to Wei-Chen. This father, like so many immigrant fathers, vacillates between sternness (consequences! shame!) and sympathy for that “sting of rejection” that he can remember feeling himself. Besides giving us a distinctively stylized rendition of the Monkey King origin story, the drama we’re about to see also serves to explain Su WuKong’s change of heart, how Wei-Chen’s well-intentioned rebelliousness is a peach that hasn’t fallen far from the tree. Wei-Chen’s words reverberate throughout this episode, first with Jin when he remembers Wei-Chen’s support in the TP-ing triumph, then when he stings his father with, “I’m not like you, and I never want to be like you.” Words we’re told Sun WuKong has heard before…
3. Operatic Party at Heaven’s Hierarchy
No viewer could fail to notice the production semiotics of the TV show-within-the-show that serves up the flashback to when Sun WuKong heard such words before, back before he’d become the Monkey King, when he and Niu MoWang/Bull Demon were friends slipping their way into the divine awards banquet and variety show. There’s so much here to unpack, this 26-minute unbroken segment could merit its own “Five Thoughts,” starting from the aspect ratio change as we zoom into Sun WuKong’s face, to the countless retro stylings, camera pans, set designs and color palettes, acting tics and voice tricks, and million other details that transported me back to watching Chinese broadcasting over my parents’ shoulders as I grew up in the 1980s. Pointing out all those particulars might even further distance audiences for whom those same touchstones don’t mean a thing. And it might be enough to simply say, it was remarkably meaningful that I got through about twenty minutes of it before I realized, with a gasp: here was a Disney+ show, heavily marketed with tons of big stars, and this entire sequence… has been in Mandarin. I hadn’t even noticed, and obviously, non-Chinese-speaking watchers would have. I was gobsmacked.
Continued belowI guess for viewers looking for the “why” in such an extended interlude, this long excursion into why Niu MoWang might resent Sun WuKong and pursue that Staff (JingGu Bang), who Princess Iron Fan (Poppy Liu) and the Jade Emperor (James Hong) might be, and wherefore Sun WuKong became a proud King from a reputed rapscallion… ALL of it could have been told more economically and efficiently. I’m glad it didn’t.
Because this piece doesn’t just homage to Asian media through visual allusions and performance staging conventions, but also the narrative pace and structure. There’s a rhythm to WuKong’s cunning and cajoling in the party line (with Ronny Chieng’s appearance as Ji Gong), the trickster reversal plot with Ao Guang the Dragon King (Jimmy O. Yang), and the drawn-out conflict between WuKong’s ambition and nerve and Niu MoWang’s reverence and resentment. The story cycles through the tussle between honor and initiative, humility and hunger, assertiveness and anarchy, patience and self-confidence, to cultivate the show’s central thematic tensions.
4. The New Great Sage Takes the Late Stage
Another aspect where I have no good gauge on its mileage for others was the first climatic scene where Sun WuKong takes over the microphone when the Celestial Achievement Award is about to be given to Ao Guang. Do others see what I see in Daniel Wu’s performance, the schmoozing and stage presence of those uncles asked to host every wedding and cultural banquet, who had just that blend of brashness, bad jokes, coquettishness, and tongue-in-cheek candor that could win over a crowd of people? When WuKong smashes the peach after calling out Ao Guang as “just a fish” and the whole rigamarole as “a bunch of phonies giving each other awards,” I cheered (in my head). NOT because Sun WuKong’s beguiling charisma duped me, but because the complex representation of this folk hero character who is winsome and brazen but far from wise and at peace (yet) is exactly the nuance that flat renditions of Chinese cultural values miss. We don’t have to wait long before Niu MoWang (our supposed antagonist) says what we’re thinking, that Sun WuKong may be clever, he may be smart, but he’s no sage.
5. Your Own Path
Remembering all this, present-day Sun WuKong, apparently wiser, sends Wei-Chen on his “own path.” His son lands by Jin’s side, but somehow rather than just a moment, a month has passed. Jin gets on his bus and we know we’re headed back into the A plot by next episode. If you’ve already watched the rest of the show, you may scoff at my predictions. But just based on this episode’s disquisition on identity, worth, and wisdom, I anticipate that Wei-Chen’s pursuit of the Fourth Scroll and involvement with Jin will bring each of them to their own moment of truth, when Jin’s ambition may compel a betrayal like Sun WuKong’s. Ultimately, the tensions between Jin and Wei-Chen’s quests, between Simon and Christine’s ambitions, and Niu MoWang and Sun WuKong will require them to reckon with the idea that the cost of ambition is the loss of friendship, but real power resides in acceptance and co-existence. I’ll be interested after episode 8 to check back in with this one’s ideas and questions.
Next week, join us for the 5th episode of American Born Chinese, “Abracadabra.” And thank you for watching and reading along!
