When & Where Does ‘American Born Chinese’ Take Place?
American Born Chinese is a new Disney+ original series based on a graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang. It’s an action fantasy comedy about a teenager named Jin Wang, a child of Taiwanese immigrants struggling to fit in with his peers. His journey turns epic as Jin finds himself in the middle of a war among gods. But when and where does the story take place?
In Gene Luen Yang’s novel, the story takes place roughly in the late-80s, early-90s, moving from Chinatown in San Francisco to a typical Southern Californian suburb. In Disney+’s American Born Chinese series, the story is set in the 2020s, making it more contemporary and adjusted to the modern day.
The story’s spirit remained the same, but the shift made the show more relatable. It’s not surprising that the show is that good, though, as the cast and crew behind the project are astounding. Here’s all you need to know about when and where American Born Chinese takes place and about the crew behind the show.
What is ‘American Born Chinese’ about?
The plot of American Born Chinese mainly revolves around Jin Wang, a high schooler who struggles to fit in with his peers but is generally your typical teenager.
He loves collecting manga, playing soccer, and just trying to figure out who he is as he goes through his adolescence while struggling to balance his immigrant home life and culture and his high school life and environment. The graphic novel’s writer, Gene Luen Yang, drew inspiration from his own teenage years in the 90s.
Jin’s life is uneventful until he is tasked with showing a new kid around. Wei-Chen is another foreign kid who’s much more outgoing and flamboyant than Jin, often making the latter uncomfortable and embarrassed to be around him.
Well, things will soon take a dramatic twist when Jin Wang realizes who Wei-Chen actually is. He is a disguised son of a powerful Chinese deity or a legendary figure in their folklore – the Monkey King.
We-Chen dreamed of the mythical Fourth Scroll that could help him stop an all-out war among gods and an uprising against Heaven. The very same dream revealed to him that a common teenager would help him in his quest to find the Fourth Scroll, and Wei-Chen was adamant that it would be Jin Wang.
The plot follows three simultaneous storylines, one of which happens in the mythological realm where the gods reside. It’s a phenomenal, hilarious tale that brings fiction and action and speaks on issues such as family life, cultural influence, and the search for identity that every person goes through.
Where does ‘American Born Chinese’ take place?
As I’ve mentioned, American Born Chinese has a couple of intertwining storylines merging into one coherent plot. It’s as much about fantasy and action as it is about Chinese culture, folklore, and just being an immigrant living in America.
In the graphic novel and the show, the plot takes place in Southern California. The Wangs moved from Chinatown in San Francisco to the typical SoCal suburbs, which was indeed a trend that started in the 1990s and continued through the 2000s.
Hence, the main plot is going on in the Californian suburbs and Jin’s high school. For the record, the show was mainly filmed in Los Angeles and Altadena, California – a suburban census-designated area about 14 miles from Downtown Los Angeles and right up north from the city of Pasadena, California, making it the perfect setting for the story.
Other than the Southern Californian suburbs, another plot happens in a mystical realm of the gods, or Heaven. A war is brewing there, and our main heroes are trying to stop it as the storylines between the two reals slowly but surely begin to merge.
When does ‘American Born Chinese’ take place?
While the setting of American Born Chinese is pretty much the same in the graphic novel and the show, the timing is quite different.
In the graphic novel, the plot is set in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as the writer based the storyline on his own experience living and growing up in the suburban 90s as a kid of Asian immigrants.
Disney+’s show, however, is set in a more contemporary environment – hence, some of the plotlines had to be changed to fit the 2020s social conversation better. As Yang – the writer of American Born Chinese – spoke to Spectrum News, he revealed:
“The conversation about who we are as a community, who Asian Americans are, has changed in that time. Those changes needed to be reflected in the show.”
One of the key cast members also addressed the show’s creation and contemporary importance. Daniel Wu, the actor portraying the Monkey King, shared his thoughts:
“It is a rare moment in time for Asian Americans in that we got the best of the best to work on this project. We get to display a lot of aspects of our cultural heritage. What I like about this show is its universal theme of trying to fit in and finding your identity in high school. It’s okay to be awkward. It’s okay to not fit in.”
So, while the novel takes place mostly in the 1990s, some major plot points were changed or adjusted to suit modern day better and set the TV series in the 2020s.
‘American Born Chinese’ cast & crew
As soon as you take a look at the cast and crew list for American Born Chinese, you’ll realize why it’s such an awesome project. One of the show’s main directors and executive producers is Destin Daniel Cretton, the brilliant directing mind behind Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – an Academy Award-nominated MCU blockbuster.
The talented Kelvin Yu serves as the showrunner, being the executive producer, writer, and developer of American Born Chinese. The cast is quite star-studded as well, including two very recent Academy Award winners, Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan, who both took home Oscars for their roles in 2022’s Everything Everywhere All At Once.
There’s also the talented Daniel Wu, portraying the mythical Monkey King, while the lead role of Jin Wang belongs to the young, talented Ben Wang, who’s clearly on Disney+’s radar, as he appeared in two of their original projects this year – American Born Chinese, and Chang Can Dunk, where Ben portrayed a character named Bo.
Other names in the cast include Chin Han (the Blacklist, Mortal Kombat, The Dark Knight), Yann Yann Yeo (who made her overseas debut in American Born Chinese), Jimmy Liu (the young actor portraying Wei-Chen), and others. You can check out the full cast and crew list here.