Female-Led ‘Kung Fu’ Sequel Series In Development At Fox
By Hoai-Tran Bui/Oct. 10, 2018 4:00 pm EST
The original series, which ran from 1972 to 1975, arrived at the height of the martial arts craze in America and starred David Carradine as a half-Chinese Shaolin monk who wanders the American West. Now a Kung Fu sequel series has been picked up for a pilot by Fox, which hopes to revamp it with a modern audience in mind.
Kim is set to write the sequel series will follow a new character named Lucy Chang, whose relation to Carradine’s character is unclear. Per Deadline:
Kung Fu is an action-driven procedural about a young Chinese-American woman who inherits her father’s kung fu studio, only to discover it’s actually a secret center dedicated to helping members of the Chinatown community who have nowhere else to turn. With the help of a former star pupil — a smart and driven ex-Marine — she vows to continue the school’s mission. In the process, she discovers things she never knew about her cultural background and family’s heritage, including a connection to a legendary ancestor.
And this is just the second attempt to bring back the series, after a “more straight-forward female-lead reboot of the original series with a different writer” was developed last year, according to Deadline. That series was a period drama set in the ’50s and followed a similar narrative as the original, except Lucy Chang was in search of the man who stole her child years before.
Admittledly, Berlanti has proven to be a talented producer who pushes diversity in the CW TV superhero shows like The Flash and Supergirl, and having an Asian-American talent like Kim behind-the-scenes is encouraging. And an Asian-led project would be another win for representation after the flood of projects following the success of Crazy Rich Asians. It just seems like a matter of dealing with the original show’s historical baggage, which hopefully the team can tackle with the pilot. We’ll have to wait and see.
