Olivia Liang on Kung Fu's premiere: "It's very eerie how relevant it is to what's happening today"

ETonline

The CW's adaptation of the 1970s martial arts drama starring Liang in the title role has been filming since the onset of the pandemic in March of last year, but the actress says it feels especially relevant premiering today amid a wave of anti-Asian violence. "It's crazy how reflective of the world we're living in today, April 2021, is in the pilot," she says. "It doesn't escape us that our show is coming at a very strangely, eerily on-time moment... We talk about it being a reclamation of the original series aired in the '70s, but I think it's also a reclamation of our identity in this country." Being the rare Asian-American lead of a network series, Liang adds: "We are taking power over the narrative of how we're seen and it seems silly to think that a TV show can change minds, but really, entertainment shapes our worldview and shapes the narrative that we have of people. Asian Americans have and Asians in Hollywood have historically been othered, and I think our show is about to show everyone that we're not other...I could feel a lot of pressure to be the "face of the first of its kind," but truly without this cast who was surrounding me and sharing that pressure with me, I wouldn't be able to handle it because it is so important and so poignant, especially in light of what's going on today."