Homecoming Warrior

[Faithless]

Disney Promotes Teen Stars in TV Movies (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6298419.html?display=Breaking+News)

By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/10/2006 2:26:00 PM

...
Brenda Song, of Disney's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, will star in Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, which begins production in February. The network announced its movie plans at their panel today during the Television Critics Association (TCA) press tour.
...

[nameless]

I've seen the show while flipping channels. She's funny and kinda cute.

[Faithless]

More info on the Brenda Song movie. It gets worse ... (http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=4&article=28359)

I was afraid of this. Why can't we just play it straight without the extra bullshit?

There would have been lots of potential in this thing as an aspire to be equal type of flick.

...

Disney Channel's original action/adventure movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, which stars 17-year-old Brenda Song, begins production next month and is slated for deliver in summer 2006. The movie features a Chinese-American teen whose goal is to be homecoming queen. But her life takes a turn when a monk, Shen, shows up and informs her that she's a reincarnated Chinese warrior and needs to save the world.
My god, I'd totally call this movie cornballs if the reincarnated Chinese warrior was -- Fa Mulan.

[mr. x]

and then her white boyfriend can be like "thats wicked cool!"

sorry

[Faithless]

See what happens when you play a ditz on a regular TV show:

"... young viewers may have to suspend some disbelief, at least initially, to accept Ms. (Brenda) Song in her latest Disney role, that of Wendy Wu, a sharp, down-to-earth California teenager ..."

Could be worse. Her regular role could have been the stereotype and she could then find problems in roles that break it. But still.

"... before long Ms. Song began to make a convincing case that she was much more like Wendy than her "Suite Life" alter ego ..."

And : "... her latest character also share an expertise in the martial arts ..."

Brenda Song Turns Warrior in Disney's 'Wendy Wu' (http://www.mickeynews.com/News/DisplayPressRelease.asp_Q_id_E_6166Wendy)

Can anyone picture SWK doing this with his future offspring: Ms. Song's "... father used to show her classic kung fu movies like 'Five Deadly Venoms' and 'The Leg Fighters' ..."?

And is there a strong Asian woman role in this: " Song says ''... 'Wendy Wu' had appealed to her not only as a martial arts movie for her own generation, but also because it featured an Asian-American woman in a strong lead role."

The Lucy Liu of the teen set?

By JACQUES STEINBERG | The New York Times | 6/16/2006

The more than a million Disney Channel viewers who watch "The Suite Life of Zack & Cody" each week know the actress Brenda Song as the character London, the spoiled, dim, yet somehow lovable brat whose absent father owns a fancy Manhattan hotel.

So those young viewers may have to suspend some disbelief, at least initially, to accept Ms. Song in her latest Disney role, that of Wendy Wu, a sharp, down-to-earth California teenager whose pursuit of her school's homecoming crown is upended by a mysterious visit from a Chinese monk. The monk implores Wendy to assume an identity from a long-past life, that of a warrior who was expert in the martial arts and whose services are needed again, to save the world.

The made-for-television movie "Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior," in which Ms. Song has her first starring role, has its premiere on the Disney Channel tomorrow night at 8.

Over a recent breakfast of blueberry pancakes at the Red Flame diner in Midtown Manhattan, Ms. Song seemed, at first meeting, to have much in common with London. A professional model and actress since kindergarten, she recently celebrated her 18th birthday by buying herself a black-opal Mercedes-Benz CLK 500 coupe (list price, typically, more than $50,000).

"London is my fantasy person," said Ms. Song, who was wearing her long brown hair slightly pouffy and streaked, and whose cadences were bubbly and brisk. "I wish I could be her. I wish I had her closet."

But before long Ms. Song began to make a convincing case that she was much more like Wendy than her "Suite Life" alter ego (whose name in an early script, incidentally, was Paris, an apparent allusion to another hotel heiress). Unlike London, Wendy is the daughter of two obviously loving, involved parents, as is Ms. Song, whose father teaches second grade and whose mother is a homemaker, and whose family (including two brothers) relocated from Sacramento to Los Angeles when she was 6 to support her nascent acting career.

"I think sometimes it's hard for London," Ms. Song said. "She doesn't really have parents. No one can say no to her. No one can tell her something is wrong. Imagine if you never saw your dad?"

Ms. Song and her latest character also share an expertise in the martial arts, another distinction from London, whose idea of a workout in one episode was to go to the gym to raise and lower heavy shopping bags. While Wendy becomes skilled in kung fu, Ms. Song earned a black belt in tae kwan do at 14, having practiced, at times, an hour or more a day, six days a week.

"I love to spar and to fight," she said, though learning kung fu, which can be as fluid as tae kwan do is jarring, required some adjustments. "They're as different as ballet and hip-hop," she said. "I had to learn how to work more with my hands. On top of that, we had to learn how to stunt-fight."

In a bit of corporate synergy that only Disney could imagine, Ms. Song trained for "Wendy Wu" under Koichi Sakamoto, executive producer of the channel's "Power Rangers" series, which marries martial arts to science fiction. To accommodate Mr. Sakamoto, who also directed the action sequences of "Wendy," the movie was filmed in New Zealand, as is "Power Rangers."

But "Wendy Wu" wouldn't be a Disney production if it didn't also have an underlying message for young people, and there too Ms. Song says she can relate. Wendy is a second-generation Chinese-American, and in the movie she and her family are seen struggling with the tension between embracing and renouncing their cultural heritage.

For example Wendy's father ends one dinner by angrily pushing away a moon cake, a pastry associated with the Chinese mid-autumn festival that, in this instance, triggers memories much as Proust's madeleine might. So that this scene, and others, would have some authenticity, it was reviewed closely before filming by Yunxiang Yan, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-director of the university's center for Chinese studies.

"I always feel a movie can do a lot in terms of influence," Professor Yan said in a telephone interview. "In the movie you get the impression that cultural heritage is something in your genes. It just needs to be awakened and you get it back. Hopefully it will also deliver another side of this message: the importance of cultural heritage, and that it takes effort from all generations."

Ms. Song's parents were both born in Asia. Her father is Hmong and was raised in a tribe that traversed the mountains of Thailand and Laos. Her mother was born Thai but adopted into a Hmong family. They met, Ms. Song said, as adults in Sacramento.

Ms. Song said she realized, while making the movie, that she knew little about the nomadic Hmong people, and as a result began peppering her parents with questions about their food and ceremonial dress. "Here I am telling kids, 'Don't lose your heritage,' " she said, "and I'm losing mine."

Ms. Song said that when Disney first approached her several years ago about "Wendy Wu," it was pitched as a situation comedy in which she would play a Chinese princess who sought to reawaken the warrior within an unsuspecting boy. But soon the project evolved into a star vehicle for Ms. Song, who, before "The Suite Life," was introduced to Disney Channel audiences through roles on the series "Phil of the Future" and in the movies "Get a Clue" (with Lindsay Lohan) and "Stuck in the Suburbs."

Ms. Song, whose father used to show her classic kung fu movies like "Five Deadly Venoms" and "The Leg Fighters," said "Wendy Wu" had appealed to her not only as a martial arts movie for her own generation, but also because it featured an Asian-American woman in a strong lead role.

"Growing up," she said, "I never saw Asian-Americans on TV at all."

Ms. Song's path to children's television stardom began on a stroll through a Sacramento mall when she was 3. Her family was approached by the owner of a modeling school. Already aware at that young age what a commercial was — she said she was fascinated by images of Cindy Crawford pitching Pepsi in a Lamborghini — the young Ms. Song persuaded her parents to scrape together $500 from relatives to enroll her. A commercial for Little Caesars Pizza when she was 5, she said, led to a number of other commercials, many of them for Mattel products like Barbie.

"I did a lot of food chains," she said. "Me, I love to eat. I was the only girl where, when they would say, 'Do you want to spit it out?' I'd say, 'No, I'll eat it.' "

Through home schooling, Ms. Song earned a high school diploma at 16, and she has since taken college courses online. Eventually, she said, she hopes to become a full-time student of business and psychology. But for now, she said, she intends to ride the wave of her acting career as far as it takes her, including what she presumes will be at least another season on "The Suite Life."

After watching Ms. Song survive the rigors of her "Wendy Wu" training — which included being suspended for hours in a stunt harness tethered to wires, even after damaging ligaments in one of her ankles — Mr. Sakamoto said he would happily hire her not just as an actress but as a stunt double.

"Brenda would make an excellent Power Ranger," he said.

[SunWuKong]

More info on the Brenda Song movie. It gets worse ... (http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=4&article=28359)

I was afraid of this. Why can't we just play it straight without the extra bullshit?

There would have been lots of potential in this thing as an aspire to be equal type of flick.

More info on the Brenda Song movie. It gets worse ... (http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=4&article=28359)

I was afraid of this. Why can't we just play it straight without the extra bullshit?

There would have been lots of potential in this thing as an aspire to be equal type of flick.

...
Disney Channel's original action/adventure movie Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior, which stars 17-year-old Brenda Song, begins production next month and is slated for deliver in summer 2006. The movie features a Chinese-American teen whose goal is to be homecoming queen. But her life takes a turn when a monk, Shen, shows up and informs her that she's a reincarnated Chinese warrior and needs to save the world.

My god, I'd totally call this movie cornballs if the reincarnated Chinese warrior was -- Fa Mulan.


i've seen this movie before. it's called Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

[Banana]

I was so bored at work that I sent her an extremely disparaging email.

[SunWuKong]

I was so bored at work that I sent her an extremely disparaging email.

that's harsh. she's just a kid, and i'm sure Disney has a lot of control over her career at the moment. besides, the concept of the movie is not that bad. it's just that it's basically a Chinese American version of Buffy, which is not original at all. but it's a Disney production made for kids, so personally i'm not going to be that critical because Disney movies usually have good messages for kids.

[TB4000]

Well, you still have The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and American Dragon: Jake Long to fall back on.

[Faithless]

Well, you still have The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and American Dragon: Jake Long to fall back on.
That's too much cartoons and the like for me man. :frown:

[Banana]

What can I say?

"Some people play tennis; I erode the human soul."
-Penny Arcade

[Irezumi Kiss]

That's too much cartoons and the like for me man. :frown:
You should be thankful for positive Asian rep in animation. If she'd been Black, you might be seeing stuff like Hammerman:

http://memomine.com/Merchant2/graphics/animation/23.jpg

[mr. x]

thing about Jake Long is his dad's white collar white dude. Struck me as weird considering Jake doesn't look the least bit mixed (then again a korean guy asked me if I was mixed but I thought he was tripping)

as weird a premise as this is, at least they have that japanese dude in it (albeit playing chinese, err Geisha revenge?0

[SunWuKong]

thing about Jake Long is his dad's white collar white dude. Struck me as weird considering Jake doesn't look the least bit mixed (then again a korean guy asked me if I was mixed but I thought he was tripping)

as weird a premise as this is, at least they have that japanese dude in it (albeit playing chinese, err Geisha revenge?0

where does it say Jake Long is mixed though? i always thought he was full-blooded.

[mr. x]

where does it say Jake Long is mixed though? i always thought he was full-blooded.
I saw an episode where he has a parent teacher conference. white white white mcwhite dude

[SunWuKong]

I saw an episode where he has a parent teacher conference. white white white mcwhite dude

so somewhere in the episode it says he's white?

[Faithless]

It's starting its run on Disney, showing now in the Bay Area.

She gets visited by this monk guy, whose a little older than her, but he wears the monk outfit, has the accent, and does goofy stuff to make him look weird.

She needs to get good grades on world history, and lucky for her, the test is on China. He tells her that she's got 1500 years of Chinese history inside her and all she has to do is remember it.

Frick! Is that how that was done!

[SunWuKong]

It's starting its run on Disney, showing now in the Bay Area.

She gets visited by this monk guy, whose a little older than her, but he wears the monk outfit, has the accent, and does goofy stuff to make him look weird.

She needs to get good grades on world history, and lucky for her, the test is on China. He tells her that she's got 1500 years of Chinese history inside her and all she has to do is remember it.

Frick! Is that how that was done!

what a shitty friend. that's closer to 4000 years of Chinese history, and 5000 if you count the mythological rulers before the Xia dynasty.

[Faithless]

what a shitty friend. that's closer to 4000 years of Chinese history, and 5000 if you count the mythological rulers before the Xia dynasty.
What's shitty, then, I guess, is her soul / biology, because she can only stuff 1500 years of history in it. Maybe it's the age. :rolleyes:

The movie got out of hand with kungfu and stuff. Yuck.

[TB4000]

Tiger claws and crane stances all over the place, huh?

[mr. x]

It's starting its run on Disney, showing now in the Bay Area.

She gets visited by this monk guy, whose a little older than her, but he wears the monk outfit, has the accent, and does goofy stuff to make him look weird.

She needs to get good grades on world history, and lucky for her, the test is on China. He tells her that she's got 1500 years of Chinese history inside her and all she has to do is remember it.

Frick! Is that how that was done!
Honestly when has a school ever tested American kids on China? My high school was like 90% asian (of those 90% chinese, 9% korean, 1% other, and of those chinese 99% taiwanese 1% mainland or other) and we barely scratched the surface

[Azn Retribution]

Thead... worthless without pictures.

[Fly_Away_M]

Honestly when has a school ever tested American kids on China?

Please, my class had to memorize and were tested on all the major dynasties of China (Shang, Zhou, Qin, Han, Sui, Tang, Sung....Yuan, Ming, Qing, Republic, Mao Zedong...!)

Then again we might have been an exception since we were the relative minority of students in World History AP. I still had a lot of fun though. =)

Anyways, I saw the movie, and it wasn't that bad....although the fob relative that follows Wendy around obviously embarasses her...I found it more corny and embarassing than offensive. ^^

[mrazntre]

Well, you still have The Life and Times of Juniper Lee and American Dragon: Jake Long to fall back on.

hell yeh!

the great "chen schan tse" <--ok i just made that up phonetically.

[Faithless]

Thead... worthless without pictures.
See linked flash (http://psc.disney.go.com/disneychannel/originalmovies/wendywu/).

IMDB listing (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790781/)

Tsai Chin plays gma Wu (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0157796/).

.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/chottomatte/bsong000.jpg

"Yeah, yeah. Do something Kung Fusy. Like this, right?"

[Azn Retribution]

See linked flash (http://psc.disney.go.com/disneychannel/originalmovies/wendywu/).

IMDB listing (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0790781/)

Tsai Chin plays gma Wu (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0157796/).

.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/chottomatte/bsong000.jpg

"Yeah, yeah. Do something Kung Fusy. Like this, right?"

http://www.echelondata.net/gallery/g2data/albums/variance/funny/ichiro262.jpg

[didu]

More info on the Brenda Song movie. It gets worse ... (http://www.c21media.net/news/detail.asp?area=4&article=28359)

I was afraid of this. Why can't we just play it straight without the extra bullshit?

There would have been lots of potential in this thing as an aspire to be equal type of flick.


My god, I'd totally call this movie cornballs if the reincarnated Chinese warrior was -- Fa Mulan.

sounds like she's a new slayer ...

[Shuriken]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/15/arts/wu.span.jpg

I finally saw Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior last week, and I was dismayed by all of the martial-arts mysticism and Orientalist garbage, too. It negated the progress shown in depicting Wendy (Brenda Song) as just an average American high-schooler. This Orientalist nonsense is exactly what Johnny Tsunami, another Disney Channel TV movie, did so well in avoiding. Wendy Wu is no Johnny Tsunami.

Can you imagine a Disney Channel movie where a Norwegian American kid learns that he’s the reincarnation of Thor, the Norse thunder god?

Wendy Wu does have one thing going for it, though: At the beginning of the movie, Wendy is paired up with a vapid white boyfriend. But in the middle of the film, Wendy becomes attracted to her cousin from China, Shen (Shin Koyamada), and breaks up with her BF. It was a rare moment when American media positively presented an Asian man as deserving a woman’s affection.

I see that the script was co-authored by a guy named Vince Cheung, who used to co-executive-produce Married ... with Children. So, I gather that a Chinese American man had something to do with the stereotypical story. And it might explain the affirmative portrayal of Shen.

[TB4000]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2006/06/15/arts/wu.span.jpg

I finally saw Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior last week, and I was dismayed by all of the martial-arts mysticism and Orientalist garbage, too. It negated the progress shown in depicting Wendy (Brenda Song) as just an average American high-schooler. This Orientalist nonsense is exactly what Johnny Tsunami, another Disney Channel TV movie, did so well in avoiding. Wendy Wu is no Johnny Tsunami.

Can you imagine a Disney Channel movie where a Norwegian American kid learns that he’s the reincarnation of Thor, the Norse thunder god?

Wendy Wu does have one thing going for it, though: At the beginning of the movie, Wendy is paired up with a vapid white boyfriend. But in the middle of the film, Wendy becomes attracted to her cousin from China, Shen (Shin Koyamada), and breaks up with her BF. It was a rare moment when American media positively presented an Asian man as deserving a woman’s affection.

I see that the script was co-authored by a guy named Vince Cheung, who used to co-executive-produce Married ... with Children. So, I gather that a Chinese American man had something to do with the stereotypical story. And it might explain the affirmative portrayal of Shen.


Yeah, I recognize Cheung from his Married with Children days....he wrote some crazy stuff in their later seasons. He writes for a lot of those live action Nickelodeon/Disney shows currently.

[SunWuKong]

i watched this on TV a little while ago and i liked it. i knew it was made for kids though so my expectations weren't high. one thing that's distinctive about the movie that you won't find in a lot of other movies is that her parents actually specifically talked about being a Chinese American family. the kungfu fighting was a little cliché as expected, but Wendy Song's character was portrayed as a regular teenage girl otherwise. really, not a bad character at all for young Asian American girls to look up to, as she was portrayed as strong, friendly, likeable, and of course, she fights evil. not only that, there's a theme about familial responsibility - the story goes that many of her maternal ancestors also became this mystic warrior, as was her great-grandmother, and that it was time for Wendy Wu to pick up where her great-grandmother left off.

if i were to judge it by adult standards though, i wouldn't be able to get over the fact that this is a basically a rip-off of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with a twist.

[rice cracker]

I thought all her whining and irresponsible behaviour set a bad example for kids. If she were my kid, she'd have gotten a traditional beat down.

But then, I was forced to watch this movie, so this could just be the bitterness talking.