With a decades-long list of credits ranging from “Rush Hour” to Disney’s live-action “Mulan,” Tzi Ma has earned his reputation as Hollywood’s go-to Asian dad dozens of times over. But even with his latest role, the actor continues to break new ground as the patriarch of the first Asian American family to anchor a broadcast television drama on The CW’s “Kung Fu” reboot. read more…

It’s been nearly a half-century since the slo-mo spinning back kicks of “Kung Fu” first disrupted American living rooms, but the original TV western retains a singular place in the history of Hollywood yellowface: Not only was David Carradine cast as Kwai Chang Caine, Shaolin monk and martial-arts master, but the producers allegedly stole the idea from Bruce Lee and then declined to cast him. “You can’t make a star out of a 5-foot-6 Chinese actor,” an ABC executive reportedly said.

Wiser heads are behind The CW’s new “Kung Fu,” which not only casts Asians as Asians but makes its hero a woman. And moves the principal locale out of the Wild West and into current-day San Francisco. And eliminates a lot of the Taoist profundities that informed Carradine’s dialogue. And no one says “Grasshopper.” So, basically, it’s an entirely different show. Albeit with the same name and a similar number of slo-mo spinning back kicks. It’s also much more fun. read more…

Born in Hong Kong and raised in New York, Tzi Ma is a genre-spanning actor who has dedicated his career to documenting the Asian American experience. With every acting decision – whether it be on stage, screen or television – he has sought to portray fully rounded characters, working in an industry where accurate representation has not always been high on the agenda. read more…

As a shy daughter of working class Chinese immigrants, I grew up in New York City’s Chinatown in the early 80s but yearned for a lifestyle represented in the newstands. Month after month, I pored over the pages of my favorite magazines and saw beautiful models, fabulous clothes, and an exciting world that sparked the imagination. I remember being intrigued when I saw any model who seemed like they were even partly of Asian origin but of course I still thought the blonde models—the most ubiquitous—were the prettiest because they, who were white, were chosen to represent everything that was “aspirational.” This was the norm of the times and was reflected in the choice 99% of the time in the campaign faces chosen, the cover stars shot, all the way to the larger than life designers. Even though I was American, I was resigned to the fact that there was no one in pop culture that looked like me.. After joining the industry as a model agent in the early 90’s, I loved learning about some of the highly regarded avant-garde Japanese designers but they were all based in Paris which seemed so far away. Closer to home, a few designers of Chinese origin had started to take off. What was very clear to me was that Asians were still the anomaly in not only fashion but in film and television as well. read more…