When I read the brief premise and saw the trailer of this series on Disney+, I was quite intrigued and wanted to give it a try. At first I thought it would be released a single episode per week like its usual set up, but I just realized last Friday that all episodes were already shown few days before. So I started watching on Saturday and finished it last night. OK, why don't I get into the series then?

Brief Story Line

Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang - The Monkey King, Fantasy Island etc) was a young Chinese-American who had been working for years as waiter in a restaurant in Manhattan, Chinatown together with his best friend Fatty Choi (Ronny Chieng - Kungfu Panda 4, M3GAN etc). Willis had been aspiring to be more than just a waiter and wanted to be in the spotlight, but he did not realize that he was actually just a background character in a police procedural show where the lead were a couple of detectives Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones - The Gilded Age TV series etc) and his partner Sarah Green (Lisa Gilroy - Glamorous TV series etc). 

When one night Willis witnessed a crime near his work place, he decided to be proactive and tried to help the investigation. He did so with the help from a new detective Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet - Abominable, Rally Road Racers etc) who was also eager to resolve the crimes in Chinatown. Willis' actions though, resulted to strained relationship with his mother Lily Wu (Diana Lin - The Farewell, The Family Law TV series etc) and his boss in the restaurant, Uncle Wong (Archie Kao - Blackhat, Chicago P. D. TV series etc). As Willis tried to find the reasons behind the spike in crimes in his neighborhood, he also found that it might have something to do with the disappearance of his older brother many years before.

So what would happen to Willis and how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.

End of Brief Story Line

As I said above, I felt the series had interesting premise. Originally I thought it would be something like that fun movie Free Guy where the lead character was an NPC who never realized he was in a gaming world. However, as soon as I started watching, I could immediately feel that this was totally different, especially in the tone. While that movie felt light and fun with occasional action scenes that were fitting for a blockbuster movie, this one felt a bit heavy, gloomy and the humor was quite dark, not the kind that would make us laugh out loud & not a lot of action. Frankly speaking, though the first episode still feel comedic in nature, I always felt that it was rather dramatic.

Anyway, as I tried to grasp and guess where the story was heading, I found myself to be a bit confused at first. But gradually I could understand better and with that came better appreciation as well on the intelligence of the story. However, as the series progressed, I found that the comedy was getting lesser and the story became complicated and heavy, especially with the growing self realization of the characters involved. This made me realized that the series was not exactly what I was looking for. Nevertheless, I kept on watching and hope that I would like it more. Fortunately in the final two episodes, I felt the series was moving in a faster pace with more intent as I could finally see how it would likely end. The finale was pretty conclusive to me and I got to admit that the series was indeed pretty unique (Btw, the mentioning of hulu was a nice touch). I definitely could see the appeal for critics who looked to approved this as proven by its high ratings.  

The series had 10 episodes overall with duration that was not too long (between 34-47 minutes only). In the first episode, I noticed the name Taika Waititi as the director who also served as one of the Executive producers, along with showrunner Charles Yu. He was the writer of the novel this series was based on, which was written in 2020 and won several accolades including that year's National Book Award for Fiction. Having him onboard certainly was the right choice as he would be able to ensure the story was told as per his vision. The cast in general were quite decent, especially Ronnie Chieng who I thought was the best in here. Aside from the main cast above, there were also support cast like the familiar face of Tzi Ma (The Kid Detective, Wu Assassins TV series etc) as Willis' father Joe Wu, Lauren Tom (The Joy Luck Club etc) as Real Estate Agent Betty, Michael Harney (Orange is the New Black TV series etc) as Chief Walden, Chris Pang (Charlie's Angels 2019 version etc) as Kung Fu Guy and several others.

Overall to me this was a series with unique premise. It might seem fun at first, but the series was actually a lot more serious and heavy than I had expected which was a good thing for those looking for such attributes in a series, but not exactly what I had in mind. Though it was classified as Action comedy, but the action was very limited and the comedy was scarce. The mystery was interesting and it did have a satisfying ending, even if it's thought provoking. I do not foresee there would be a second season, seeing that it was based on a standalone novel, but stranger things have happened before. So if you are into series that delve into the existence & struggle of Chinese American with their stereotyping in general, then this series should interest you. But if you are hoping for light, fun action comedy series, then this might not really satisfy you. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars