This week marked the release of the fifth—and unexpectedly final—season of beloved Canadian sitcom Kim’s Convenience, which ended its run prematurely this year after the show’s producers said they didn’t know how to move forward after the departure of creators Ins Choi and Kevin White. Among the many fans mourning its departure, the release of this final dose of the show’s funny and humane treatment of Asian Canadian life was greeted with a pointed response from series star Simu Liu, who hopped on Facebook to let the world know about the unhappy circumstances under which the show was first filmed, and then concluded.
Specifically, the Shang-Chi star laid out a numbered list of grievances, calling out, among others, the show’s “overwhelmingly white” producers, who, despite their stated inability to find anyone to run Kim’s, are moving forward with a spin-off series (Strays) focused on Nicole Power’s character Shannon, the only non-Asian person in the show’s main cast. “I love and am proud of Nicole, and I want the show to succeed for her,” Liu writes. “But I remain resentful of all of the circumstances that led to the one non-Asian character getting her own show. And not that they would ever ask, but I will adamantly refuse to reprise my role in any capacity.”
Liu also noted that Ins, who developed the series from an original stage play, was the only Korean voice in the writers’ room, and that efforts from the largely Asian cast to have their input taken on their characters’ stories or the show’s general direction were rebuffed or ignored.
We were a cast of Asian Canadians who had a plethora of lived experiences to draw from and offer to writers. But we were often told of the next seasons’ plans mere days before we were set to start shooting… there was deliberately not a lot of leeway given to us… I can appreciate that the show is still a hit and is enjoyed by many people… but I remain fixated on the missed opportunities to show Asian characters with real depth and the ability to grow and evolve.
Liu also admits to what sounds like fairly serious fighting amongst the cast itself, noting that, “We were too busy infighting to understand that we were deliberately being pitted against each other.” This, while also pointing out that “we were paid an absolute horsepoop rate” for their work on the hit sitcom. And while he also expressed his unhappiness at Choi, who departed the show “without so much as a goodbye note to the cast,” Liu seems to hold most of his ire for the producers—especially in an accompanying Twitter post, in which he says the show’s stars tried to keep the series going for a sixth season drawn from their own voices, but were given a “huge slap in the face” instead.
All in all, it’s a pretty profoundly unhappy ending for the series, although Liu was careful to note his love for the series’ fans, as well as the professionalism and care of its day-to-day crew. “You couldn’t ask for a better group of people or a better working environment,” he writes, ending that, “I still believe in what the show once stood for; a shining example of what can happen when the gates come down and minorities are given a chance to shine.”
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Here’s a note to all non-American Whites: You’re racists too, and just because you’ve been able to use America as a scapegoat for the past 300 years doesn’t mean your minority communities deserve it. Learn from us, do better than us, and the first step to do that is to listen when people are telling you that you’re fucking up.
its like, where do you think the people in america came from?
This is a huge bummer, if refreshingly and necessarily honest and give no fucks.
I’d never heard of this show until it popped up on my Prime this weekend while I was looking for Seinfeld (I’m in Spain). It looked very generic, albeit with an Asian cast. Anyone who has seen it, is it actually good?
Asian-American here. Absolutely LOVED the show for the first 4 seasons. It was so funny, and episodes were short and easy to watch, experiences rather realistic to real life for me. Haven’t watched the 5th yet, but people have said it’s very unresolved and rather disappointing. After reading this backstory, I think it will dampen my experience watching it too. :(p.s. if you do watch it, give it a chance past the first 3 episodes. I was kinda meh for 3 episodes and then it got a lot better. Similar to a lot of other shows and dramas for me though.
Thanks for the insights, worth adding to the queue. Cheers!
A little warning: If you don’t like awkward comedy then you might want to stay away.Don’t get me wrong, it’s a funny show, but I honestly haven’t seen a show that makes me cringe and wanna fast forward as much as it did since Greek lol.
I watched the first four seasons on Netflix and the fifth on Youtube (don’t know if it’s been taken down yet, it wasn’t an official channel) and generally really liked it. The fifth season basically continued the trend of flanderization/sitcomification that you saw through the first four. It’s still enjoyable, but it peaked in the earlier seasons. I wouldn’t really call the ending unresolved (and in fact, the final shot of the last ep makes a decent image to end the series on), since there wasn’t really a major focus to build it around. It was just a series of ‘and now the various characters are going to have these A/B plots, which will be wrapped up by the end’. Fun, but not the slow serialized evolution of reconciling Jung and Mr Kim’s relationship, or resolving the ‘will they or won’t they’ of Jung and Shannon.
It’s interesting to reconcile the nature of the show, as you mention, with Liu’s expressed frustration of the characters not growing. I think that’s why, as much as I enjoy it, I haven’t finished season 4. It didn’t go anywhere. That’s not a request for the show to have been a lore-heavy fully-serialized piece. But it started to feel like “okay, i’ve seen all this.”
Yeah, thanks for the lowdown. I’m Asian American, too, and I’m feeling like a Bad Asian for not having given Kim’s Convenience a good chance past the first episode, which as you said is a little ‘meh’. It’s unfortunate though that I’m now more motivated to watch more of it but I know I’ll be distracted by this Shannon character since she’ll be the one getting a spinoff. Perplexing, but I’ll know more once I start watching this again.
…I know I’ll be distracted by this Shannon character since she’ll be the one getting a spinoff.Apparently, in the second episode, Shannon goes, “The best washing cycle for getting the dirt off? Spin!”
The rest of the cast just look at her and frown.Super-weird, and apropos of nothing in the episode, but now I kind of get it.
Thanks for that last detail! I thought it would be a fun series, I love Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, but the premiere is some of the most formulaic television ever. I gave too much of my childhood to crappy CBC series, I wasn’t going to get sucked into another! I’ll give it a try past those episodes and hopefully will enjoy it.
oh man, good ol’ crappy cbc tv series from the 80s and 90s…
I’m sorry, I don’t give two fucks about Degrassi. =D
It never becomes more than a formulaic TV sitcom, but it is a well done one.
I will take that advice. I started watching it a while ago and after three episodes I stopped.
I’ll have to check it out again. As an Asian-American, I think I initially thought it was just another generic show at the expense of its Asian characters and I didnt make it past the first 10 minute. I’ll give it another change based on your recommendation.
S5 is actually pretty great but it is obvious that it was written with a 6th season in mind. have fun with the rest of the show 🙂
It’s a straight forward sitcom executed very well with a great cast. It’s not breaking the mold (except for the fact that the cast is almost entirely Asian) but it’s got a lot of heart and earnest charm that’s pretty rare nowadays.
Honestly, having a mostly Asian and immigrant cast that doesn’t try to explain everything for a white audience *is* still mold breaking, even in 2021.
That’s a great way to look at it. I wonder if maybe that’s part of the (stupid) issue: dumb tv producers still thinking things like “but will it play in Peoria (or Saskatoon)?”I grew up small town BC white kid and I still recognized lots of KC. Some of it is that like many Canadian towns, we had little mom and pop convenience stores run by Asian or Hindu families. I was from metropolitan Toronto, and never lived in Vancouver proper. The show wasn’t “foreign” to even my limited experiences. Which tells me that tv people are stupid, and how much more representation is needed for pop culture to reflect reality. “It’s so forced” will come the cry. Me: have you like, looked around your community in the past decade?
Yeah seriously, not to mention…if people can relate to fantasy series, I damn well think they can navigate real-life cultural contact.
…. oh my god, this is fantastic AND ENTIRELY TRUE.I mean, we know all the usual whinging about “representation is harrrrd” is garbage, but jesus.
Me: have you like, looked around your community in the past decade?No. They have not. Or if they have, they’ve felt funny or uncomfortable or outright hostile about what they’ve seen. And I feel like that’s a huge part of the representation problem.
Or, being slightly more generous, their communities don’t reflect the things that certain shows are presenting—so they can stick with Man Grunts His BMs and Wife Grimaces, starring Tim Allen and Gina Carano.
Y’know, and I get it, to a certain extent, but also: just fucking bubble and tunnel vision. Even in northern communities or more rural communities in Alberta, it’s not that whitebred these days. If you’re ANYWHERE in the Lower Mainland of BC, it’s diverse AF. Calgary has a huge Punjabi and Sikh community. Etc etc. I don’t need to preach to you, you get it. Fuck.
Totally get what you’re saying, too. I hesitated to even include the second paragraph in my original reply to you.I feel like the last five years have been so fucking draining for anyone with even a sliver of heart that one of the main ways I’ve been coping has been to extend the empathy branch to anyone I can’t understand, who frustrates me, or who I feel is completely wrong.Fuck, indeed.
Would you say it’s similar to Schitt’s Creek in that regard, then? I love that show but it didn’t do anything new with it’s fish out of water setup. But the show loved it’s characters, and through its writing and the amazing acting and heart it made itself something special.
I mean, it’s what it is – a sitcom in very well-trod territory. Absolutely nothing new goes on here. Dad is bumbling but good-hearted. Mom is tough-willed and loves her family. Kids talk about work and boyfriends. Repeat next week. Honestly, you could copy/paste from anywhere.That’s why it cracks me up to hear this guy throw shade at everyone, complaining like he was trying to get Schindler’s List filmed. Like it’s some gritty, complex character study of Korean life, and all the racist studio devils stomped on his dream. Like all sitcoms, it’s just 20ish minutes of gags on dating, work, parents, etc. I guess non-Korean writers are incapable of writing “ooh he’s sooo cute” jokes for Korean actors.
On a scale of Canadian sitcoms, it’s deeper than Corner Gas, but no Schitt’s Creek.At my house, the first four seasons were something my wife and I would watch with our daughter as she was finishing high school and coming home on break from college, much like we’ve watched some seasons of the Great British Baking Show.I am thinking that we may save this season to watch the next time she’s home. The show isn’t profound enough to make it must-see-TV or one you must immediately binge-watch either out of hunger or to avoid spoilers, but kind of warm and fuzzy like the recent remake of One Day at a Time.
I have to say that I like it better than Schitt’s Creek. Well, except the Janet-centric episodes. She’s by far the weakest character and the show got better when it expanded and spent less time focusing on her.
That seems to be part of the frustration for Liu–that the cast’s attempts to expand or grow beyond it’s sitcom rhythms were all ignored/rebuffed.
I’d put the texting episode up there with anything from Schitt’s Creek.But once Appa and Jung started talking again, the show didn’t really have anything to say, but was too popular to end.
I don’t know what people see in Schitt’s Creek, so I was reticent to watch Kim’s Convenience. I would rate Kim’s much higher. Kim’s actually developed characters outside of the main family (and the main family wasn’t just caricatures), and for all its accolades as an inclusive show, Schitt’s Creek sure didn’t have a lot of POC.
It is too late to edit my reply with a late thought, but on a scale of Canadian sitcoms, a more direct comparison might be made to The Little Mosque on the Prairie. If you liked it, you’ll probably like Kim’s Convenience.
If you take a look around, you will find heaps of praise for how wonderfully representative and authentic it is. Funny, with awesome characters. It is far from generic!
Its excellent. It looks generic and it is a pretty standard sitcom in many ways, but it has far more fleshed out characters and relationships than most sitcoms, a lot more heart, and is pretty consistently funny without being cringe inducing.
The first two seasons are some of the best stuff in any sitcom from the last 10 years.The next few are still pretty damn solid.
I didn’t find it watchable. I don’t like acting that seems unnatural – like reading lines.
It’s really, really good. I’ve only seen the first 4 seasons, but I loved it. I love the characters, I love the setting. It’s funny and, as the AV club said, humane.
Yes, its very good. I came across this one about a year ago and have watched episodes here and there when I have a half hour to kill. Also look into Corner Gas. Also a Canadian show and equally brilliant.
We have not seen S5 yet, but really enjoyed the first 4 seasons. It’s sweet and funny, and the actors are great. It is a sitcom, but I think it pairs well with Schitt’s Creek and it’s nice to see the representation. We’ll definitely watch S5 though it is bittersweet that the show is ending this way, and with such unhappiness on Simu Liu’s part (and probably others’).
You’ve had lots of replies, but I may a well add mine…Yes, it’s generic; I’d also describe it as ‘comfortable’ and ‘pleasant’. It’s what would traditionally be described here in the UK as ‘gentle’ comedy. It isn’t radical or innovative, and I found it very rarely laugh-out-loud funny. It’s usually pretty predictable.
However, I really liked it (only seen the first two seasons so far). It’s warm. It’s sometimes quite clever. It has well-rounded and believable characters, and relationships that feel as though they matter (which I think is partly why you have to watch a few episodes to get into it, because it’s more about the characters than about the jokes). Other than the character of Shannon, it mostly feels more British in sensibilities: not so much of the gurning-to-camera, wait-for-the-drumroll vaudeville style that a lot of US comedy goes for, and more naturalistically-acted, underplayed jokes (many of the actors feel, much of the time, as though they’re actually actors whose characters are funny, rather than comedians doing a bit). But very little edge or nastiness. It often feels quite ‘stage-y’ – I could imagine many of the episodes as stage plays. In UK terms I’d actually probably compare it to something like “As Time Goes By” (combination of mild cliches with naturalistic performances, gentle but clever humour, unusual emphasis on older characters, etc), though it’s a bit faster-paced than that.
I didn’t find it offputtingly – or even that interestingly – ‘Korean’; it depicts a culture slightly out of the mainstream, but in a way that will be easy for most people to relate to. The old-fashioned Korean parents in this are not, for example, exactly the same as my old-fashioned Irish grandparents, but if you change the accents and names and swap out the occasional cultural reference, they’re remarkably similar!It’s basically as though someone has decided to use the form of a well-crafted traditional British sitcom or humorous play to tell a story about modern Korean-North-American lives. It’s probably not weird enough to be a cult show, and not broad-and-coarse enough to be a mass-appeal show, but it’s a genuinely good example of its genre that makes for a really comfortable, enjoyable watch.
yep, the “I’m about to be a huge Marvel star and I have no fucks to give about TV anymore” is palpable
Always nice to see someone get a big role in a Marvel movie & secure enough money that they can be refreshingly honest about their old job (see also: Dave Bautista & WWE)
Gooooood I love Large David’s GNF about WWE.
It does help that Liu is now on the Marvel payroll and likely won’t have to worry about retribution from the show’s producers or anything. Here’s hoping the rest of the show’s cast find decent work themselves after the dust settles.
Well yeah, might as well be honest. He be a Marvel star now! I’m glad he’s calling out the producers(who seem to be white…). I’m hoping that at least gives him some leeway into making getting reunion….I LOVE this show, and Simu and the entire cast. I’m not ready to say goodbye and watch this apparent. cliffhanger ending for season 5. I just wish all of them go onto have giant careers, right along with Simu. But yeah, it’s a total bummer to hear about in-fighting amongst the cast. I
I know it’s since become a reasonably well watched show for netflix but it started out as an incredibly small CBC sitcom based on a fringe show that turned into a stage play, how much were you expecting to make up front? I’m not really surprised the acting talents’ contract reflect that.
The rest of the complaints are gross though.
One of my friends worked on set there and said it was often a battle to get your name on the list because it was a very good set to work on. But sounds like they were neglecting the actual comfort of its stars, and maybe the stars made it comfortable for the set people even though it was uncomfortable for them 🙁
Yeah, the money thing is weird. CBC is a public broadcaster, they barely have two loonies to rub together, they’re not paying US network rates for actors.
I think he’s pretty clear in his statement what his rate complaint actually is about. (It’s point 5 if you want to look.) Recognizing that they had no leverage and would take what they could get, he’s not really complaining about the initial rate. Schitt’s Creek had a more famous cast and fancier agents and had a better rate, but with the first season the sitcom’s ratings were better than Creek’s. I think it’s possible that Creek may still have sold better abroad and may have more revenue than ratings suggest, but the way the producers handled contracts and took advantage of the low beginnings from play to show are of a piece of all the complaints, not an isolated thing.
That’s all well and good, but he was still on a CBC show, and “getting ratings” in Canada doesn’t lead to million-dollars-an-episode rates ever.
Listen to interviews with people who weren’t the main cast of Orphan Black. Kristian Bruun was in 40 of 50 episodes of OB and was part of the main cast for three years and was ONLY ever paid a day rate on the show.
He’s talking about the crew “banding together”, but he is ALSO treating it as if this was an American network sitcom. Yes, the Friends can band together and demand more money because NBC was making scads and scads of it, but if you band together to try and get more money on a Canadian show, you’re more likely to not have a job anymore because the budgets on Canadian shows are RIDICULOUSLY precarious.
About a decade ago CBC did an adaption of Douglas Copeland’s J Pod and it was a MASSIVE critical hit AND got decent ratings but was canceled after one season because it cost too much.
TV in Canada is nothing like TV in the US.
I would imagine Creek’s cast generated deals abroad before it aired
It’s weird having to filter some of this through the “It’s CBC” lens. I love me some good Canadian telly, but they have budgets that would make local newsrooms in the states wince.
Complaining that a white person was given work is some race baiting nonsense.
All these years later… No one’s actually learning anything. No one’s inclined to, really. They perform the motions of caring about societal problems and then do just what they always do. They keep on controlling everything and doing what they want. Doesn’t matter if it’s the US or Canada. Canada likes its clean-cut image of polite and progressive society, but they’re not better. Their capitalism is as aggressive and as white as its US counterpart.
Canada likes its clean-cut image of polite and progressive society, but they’re not better.I humbly disagree.
No, we are definitely not better.“A mass grave containing the remains of 215 children has been found in Canada at a former residential school set up to assimilate indigenous people.”https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57291530
To be fair, I don’t think anyone in Canada is saying the 215 dead children were justified but good chunk of America still thinks Jan 6th was.
umm, canada gave you jordan peterson and gavin mcinnes so…
And Faith Goldy, and Stefan Molyneux, and Ezra Levant, and Lauren Southern, the beat goes on.
Don’t forget the Proud Boys founder is Canadian.
Ezra Levant is Canada’s MyPillow guy. Makes a lot of noise and is completely insane, but nobody takes him seriously.Substitute Jason “recognizing John A. MacDonald was the architect of a genocide is cancel culture” Kenney for him on that list.
Kenney’s a real shithead, I lost a lot of faith in Alberta when he was voted in. The amount of people that fell for the “NDP is ruining Alberta!!!” rhetoric is bafflingly stupid. That said, I didn’t include him because I don’t think many outside Alberta or Canada really know much about him.Ezra Levant however, his involvement in the alt-right-osphere is really understated- his personal image is as obnoxious as Mike Lindell, but Levant has done a lot of platforming white supremacists like Southern and Goldy, and collaboration with outfits and personalities like Alex Jones, McInnes, and Mike Cernovich. That, and he has a permanent trailer billboard on the highway I take to visit my parents’ acreage, that fucker.
I just moved back to BC after ten+ years in Alberta. I was always fairly neutral about previous Alberta Cons. Really, not great, but more centre… the NDP was outstanding. They had some fuck-ups, for sure. It is so frustrating and so stupid how Jason Kenney, an Ontario-bred, private-school dick with no real job other than politician, rolled up in a blue pick-up truck and suckered so many people in. And yet: of course it’s believable. Rachel Notley made the cardinal mistake of *checks notes* being a woman in politics, and also left. Even though she still stumped hard for the precious pipeline. Even though she has ZERO control over global oil prices or OPEC. Much the way Trudeau haters don’t seem to be working with any real policies, short of “HE DID BROWNFACE ONCE! HE TAUGHT DRAMA! HE’S A COMMUNIST FASCIST!” … The threats of actual violence towards Notley, the pure tunnel-vision “NDP RUINING” rhetoric was never based on or rooted in any real policy or vision. Shockingly, Kenney wasn’t able to magically improve global oil prices. And yet, as bad as I expected the UCP to be, I never fathomed how bad it would be. Even without Covid. The base cruelty. And I’m basing this hate, this anger, on their ACTUAL words. Their ACTUAL policies. Their ACTUAL FIGHT WITH DOCTORS AND NURSES DURING A PANDEMIC. The horrible new curriculum. I’m a teacher! I saw and started to plan for the previous “new” curriculum. It was awesome. Even Alberta’s outdated curriculum was still GOOD. The fucker Kenney, days after the tragic reveals from Kamloops, whinged on Tuesday about “CANCEL CULTURE” regarding John A. Just. FUCK.
Yeah, I’m definitely not a cheerleader for particular politicians, if they can effect policies that I can value, then I’ll vote for them- I wish I could say the same about a lot of the dyed-in-the-wool, true-blue conservatives in AB. We voted Notley in after a garbage end to such a horrific gongshow of a Conservative dynasty, and people immediately were flocking to the printers to get anti-NDP decals for their gaudy pickups. Too many of us just buy into the conservative messaging that we have to be beholden to oil companies, that the East is going to fuck us over every chance they get, blah blah blah.Now we such a bunch of hypocrites that stretched out this epidemic way too long, still murmuring about cuts to healthcare, laid off a bunch of government jobs, all the while putting money into an ineffectual “Energy War Room”. We don’t just have the vultures circling, we’ve elected the vultures to watch over our wellbeing.
Not to excuse Trudeau’s brownface incident but the conservatives couldn’t get any traction on it because everyone knew they’re more racist than anybody so *shrug emoji*. I get so tired of the cynicism of politics. Sometimes it looks like the easiest job in the world. Just point with one hand while screaming “look what this guy is doing” while picking someone’s pocket with the other.Kenney is a scandal a day. Literally–he was in hot water yesterday for his cancel culture whining and now he got caught breaking his own outdoor gathering rules today. Oh, and now the Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations is dissolving their agreement with the Alberta government because they’re sick of his shit. What a small, pathetic fool he is. I am one tired Albertan.
I think it might just be because I generally don’t give much time to the right, alt or otherwise, but usually the only time I hear of Levant is when he does some stunt to try to make himself relevant again. I think he was trying to pick a fight with cops in Quebec last time I heard of him. Maxime Bernier is the same thing to me, they’re trying really hard to make the alt-right relevant but they’re more a laughing stock than anything.Kenney though, fuck Kenney. Fuck his sorry racist hide. Fuck Alberta for giving him power in the first place.
To be fair, that’s because our shittiest right-wingers know they can do better in the US.
What’s wrong with Jordan Peterson?
You mean Ted Cruz and Justin Bieber.
And Ted “Cancun” Cruz
I don’t fully disagree.And yet:Remains of 215 dead indigeneous children.
I don’t fully disagree.And yet:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/31/tulsa-race-massacre-at-100-act-of-terrorism
And it only took the US a hundred years, and a TV series about superheroes, to fully acknowledge this.
Yeah. I think we need to not make this a contest. Fucking atrocities all around.
It is a bit silly to argue over which country is slightly less racist in 2021. The one founded on white supremacy in 1776 or the one founded on white supremacy in 1867?
What a stupid fucking debate y’all are having.Which tragedy will be trotted out next to score some internet commenting points?
Of course that’s an unspeakable atrocity, but the US’s closet is also stuffed with that particular brand of skeleton.
What of it? Find me one, just one country that doesn’t have a questionable past.
how bout them residential schools bud
Point me to a single country in the world that doesn’t have disgusting, bigoted, and brutal episodes in their history.I’ll wait right here for your answer.
We tend to save our violence for natives.
Yeah, I wasn’t talking about the poor idiots capitalists use as pawns in their games…
I loudly, non-humbly agree with your humble disagreement.Canada > US and it’s not even within shouting distance.
You’re wrong. 100 people walking into a government building and not hurting anyone is a far less concerning than your PMs repeated blackface appearances. Or your death councils for the elderly.
imagine looking at jan 6 and (A) thinking that it proves that other countries don’t have equally if not more heinous attitudes toward racial and sexual minorities than america and (B) not realizing it was funny as fuck
Miss the 200+ First nation children corpses they just found at the regional schools?
Replace the American flags and Trump propaganda with Hockey banners and jerseys and that picture is basically Canada every time a Canadian team wins OR loses a Stanley cup lol.
You’re an idiot
Um, yeah, sorry, Canada is slightly better. Not “good”, but “better”.
I’d go with slightly better, since when you get a zealot like Trump trying to make headway they tend to lose traction pretty quickly unless it’s Alberta, but our history is just as stained with blood and we’ve got the National Post trying it’s damnedest to be Newsmax.* But we also don’t go as hard towards killing regulations for the sake of profit as the US does. So I’d argue that there is less aggressive capitalism, just as much racism, and the National Post can fuck themselves with a wire brush.*The National Post ran an opinion piece that outright said they don’t think the prime minister should apologize for the state sponsored murder of children.
I was about object. Then I saw you included ‘Berta.
its proof that all this crying about how everything is “changing” is completely unfounded. the status quo has babied whites, men, and cis folks so severely that even the mere THOUGHT of change frightens them into a state of fervent defense, not realizing that the “changes” happening are a dogwhistle to carry on as usual, just without getting “caught”.
Canada’s having a rough week.
There’s zero evidence in his claims that there is remotely any thing racist or problematic about the production.First – he’s Chinese on a Korean show. How is that not cultural appropriation by his own standards?Second – Korean-Canadians make up much less than 1% of the Canadian population. There’s 0% chance they are going to make a writers room, let alone one that will work in those conditions.He worked on a decent show, with a decent premise, but ultimately was a secondary character on a secondary show that most have never heard about. His career was highly subsidized by taxpayers. He should be grateful, not spiteful.
Excuse me?If you don’t like Canada, gtfo…Nobody is under any obligation to higher ‘x’ number of non-white producers, or any obligation to hire or create a spin-off for an asian. Full stop.You want representation? Write your own damn story, hire your own damn producers, hire whatever multi-colored group of people you damn well wantWhat a complaining runt you are.Nobody or no country owes you anything, at all.
Huh, is that why he has the acting range of a piece of wood? Cause he was unhappy?
I will have to start binge watching the show
My takeaway from all that I’ve read about this is that Ins Choi had his vision of the show and the characters, didn’t seem the least bit interested in hearing anyone else’s ideas, and Liu seemed to increasingly resent that, understandably. Who knows if his ideas for his character were any good, though (Jung should be louder and have access to a time machine). Maybe CBC/Netflix saw the show as a solely writer-driven show, and so when Choi left, they called it quits. Choi ghosting everyone when he decided to leave the show is weird, but after reading that letter, maybe I understand it a little better than I did before.
It sounded to me like his only beef with Choi is how he left. The bigger issue seems to be that the otherwise non-Asian writers steamrolled the cast’s ideas to make the show feel more authentic. That Choi may offer some guidelines to make things authentic since he’s the showrunner, but ultimately he can do only so much without micromanaging the writers for each script. And if that’s the case, maybe Choi got so tired of the situation that he decided to just up and leave.
Writers don’t have the freedom you’re assuming.
i imagine the rights to any future seasons of the show are too high for netflix to step in and try to produce a final season. even if they could, im not certain we would want that; their track record of picking up the baton is not that great.
Lucifer worked out well.
I suspect the problem is less about the rights and more the controversy that would arise if the white producers try to tell Asian stories.Whigh probably explains why the one character that got a spinoff is the non-asian one.
I was thinking that too. Honestly, it’s probably better that they get back in their own lane. Sounds like they were cutting it pretty close as it is, being a bunch of white people producing a show about Asian people.
They could have hired Asian writers/etc. This is solvable.
Which is unfortunately the double edge of ‘authenticity’. When people tell producers “you’re telling our stories wrong! You need to take difficult steps to improve if you want to keep telling our stories!”, what producers hear is “don’t tell our stories! tell easier stories about people who won’t complain!”[people will complain about the failure of the industry in general to tell certain stories. But that’s much less painful than people complaining about specific, individual producers trying to tell certain stories and doing it badly, so the incentive is always to let someone else take the risk…]
Yes, I’m sure there are talented Korean writers out there somewhere. But do the producers know any whose talents they are comfortable they know? And who they’re confident will create a good working environment with the existing writers, producers, actors and other crew? Can they persuade those writers to take up this baton, and at a reasonable price?Probably, yes. But I’d bet that from their point of view it’s much easier to go with the existing white writers they have, and the large rolodex of other white writers they know.
“My takeaway from all that I’ve read about this is that Ins Choi had his vision of the show and the characters, didn’t seem the least bit interested in hearing anyone else’s ideas, and Liu seemed to increasingly resent that, understandably.”Counterpoint: It’s Choi’s show so it should be his vision. Liu was not hired as a writer and shouldn’t be advising what to write unless approached for ideas. As an actor he would not like it if someone from the writing staff told him how to act.
You don’t think Ins Choi ever gave Simu Liu notes on how to read his dialogue/act out a certain scene?
Do I think the *showrunner* of the show did something that the *showrunner* is supposed to do? Why yes, I do.
It’s confusing cause he seems to separate talking about Choi and talking about the writers and producers, but Choi was the showrunner/Executive Producer. Is he saying that after Choi left the other folks negated their experience despite no Asians in the writing room, which would be bad? Or is he saying Choi and company didn’t want the actors to act like writers, which to me seems relatively fine? Looking at the credits it doesn’t seem like a particularly large writers room, so I do wonder if it was mostly just Choi and White writing the majority of scripts with limited outside interference. But between lack of input and not much money, it sounds like the cast just weren’t feeling respected, which is a real shame.
It’s a privilege – not a right – for actors to have material influence over the development of their characters.Simu is an ungrateful diva. There’s basically zero reason for him to lament, in a frankly racist manner, that there were serious troubles afoot in the previous production.‘Because someone was of a certain race’ isn’t really evidence of anything, and calls of racism are just an easy, populist charge. They only work because of the overly vigilant (and frankly racist themselves) woke/left crowd who want to use every public statement as some kind of indictment.‘Because racism exists’ then ‘every actors complaint about something something korean/white’ must be racist.He mentioned he was very unhappy being an accountant, but ‘loved’ being an actor? Who wouldn’t? If you have some talent, it’s the easiest, funnest job on the planet. His career was made possibly by Public Broacasting in Canada, which is heavily subsidized by taxpayers. He got paid ‘horsepoop’ because not really many people want to watch the show – and – acting is a commodity job that many people can do, and will do for cheap.This actor should be ‘untouchable’ – nobody will ever work with someone who makes such a public, petty and narcissistic grievance over normal workplace issues – and this goes for any discipline.
Love this show. Bummed to hear Canadian TV producers can be just as scuzzy as America’s.
Surprised to hear about the intra-cast conflicts but not so surprised at the producer’s shenanigans. I’m still looking forward to watching the final season.
Whoa! He isn’t playing, is he? Such a shame because it is a good show and the cast was so charming but wow, just wow. I can’t believe they didn’t have more Koreans in the writers room.
It’s really a great opportunity to propel Asian talent, but I guess Canadian productions can end up being worse than American ones- by comparison to Fresh Off the Boat, which has a shit-ton of Asian writers in credit.
Koreans make up much less than 1% of the Canadian population.How many writers do you think are there? How many comedy writers? How many actually good ones? And how many willing to actually do the job, on that show?It’s ridiculous on it’s face to suggest that the show’s creators – Asians themselves, have some kind of lack of self-awareness in this regard, but doubly ridiculous to suggest that they can magically change reality.And FYI Simu himself isn’t even Korean. So is he appropriating a role that should have gone to an Asian? With his ‘Han Colonialism’?
These arguments come apart quickly.
“This, while also pointing out that “we were paid an absolute horsepoop rate” for their work on the hit sitcom.”
This is the only issue. It’s Canadian TV, dude. Shit, it’s the Canadian PUBLIC BROADCASTER.
Sorry it doesn’t compare to your Marvel check, but maybe that’s life.
Sucks that the show ended and that he had such an apparently shitty experience, but it’s great to hear someone giving their honest opinion that’s not filtered through some PR flack. Hopefully for him, his MCU money is good and the roles keep coming so he can stay honest and not regret burning his bridges.
A. This show is awful and unfunny. B. How dare a Canadian show have “mostly white producers” right? Why is everyone so dumb?
This is a real bummer. I love the show and it had the vibe that everything was hunky dory behind the scenes. Also I’m not finished w/ S5 yet but clearly from the comments and spinoff news Jung and Shannon don’t end up happily ever after, which I’m totally fine with, but knowing that now is a bit of spoiler. Also count me flabbergasted that of all the characters to get a spinoff it’s Shannon, the most prominent non-Asian. I honestly strongly disliked the character at first, though she started to grow on me somewhere around S2. I ultimately land on wishing the actress nothing but the best but c’mon – if you have to do a spinoff, there are so many other and better characters and directions to go with. Off the top of my head: Janet + Gerald, Kimchee anywhere doing anything, a show about Mr. Mehta’s restaurant, a show about Mr. Mehta and Mr. Chin being forced to run a business together, Appa leading a team of “space rangers” who fly “star fighters” patrolling and protecting some kind of new galactic “republic”, etcAh well. Rooting for Simu Liu to crush it in the MCU and hoping the rest of the cast get equally strong career boosts too. I’m not Asian, but I am first generation and a lot of the show’s characters and themes resonated with me in a way that few others have, even if it was “only” a sitcom.
I don’t need a Janet+Gerald show, haha.There are few things I’ve needed less!
I hate how they made Janet date zero korean dudes, and then made the inexplicable decision to link her to the geeky pasty white dude
I’m not totally shocked that Shannon is the one that got the spinoff, since she’s the most broad, sitcommy character. I also expect it’ll be canceled after like half a season, like every time the broad, sitcommy character gets a spinoff.
You really underestimate how much Canada loves broad and sitcommy
People keep recommending Mr. D to me (I’m a teacher) and I just can’t. It’s fine! It’s… fine! It’s the epitome of “Canadian broad and sitcommy.” Kim’s overcomes that with the cast and the diversity. At least for the first few seasons. Plus, y’know, KIMCHEE
“Broad and sitcommy” wouldn’t be a cliché unless large numbers of people in many places liked that, right?That said, the Shannon we’ve seen thus far is pretty thin stuff who is defined mostly in the context of a couple of the more important characters. They’ll have to figure out who she actually is and build a new and more substantive character without reference to the previous show.
how does kimchi not come away with a spinoff? not certain a show centered around him would work, but an ensemble could pull it off. or maybe he gets you have a king of queens thing. not that i want to bring that into the world, but a formula like it.
That’s exactly what he’s doing. Married guy with kids.
i think he did standup before the show, so maybe this will pan out like a 90s sitcom. probably no audience, which is probably good right now.
i would love to sit in the writers’ room for that show as it starts out. im not sold on him being a dad, but they could make it so he was the fun uncle that was also selected as the guardian if anything happened to the parents. seeing him thrust into parenthood, trying to wrangle the kids as his past of fun uncle gets in the way…
Andrew Phung did get his own CBC show called Run the Burbs based on a new premise. I believe he is showrunner.
FWIW Andrew Phung (Kimchee) has a sitcom coming out on the same Canadian network next year called Run The Burbs, which he is showrunning and starring in. Also, the spinoff with Shannon was in the works long before the production company decided to cancel Kim’s – the timing looks lousy, but it seems like it was ultimately kind of a coincidence. If anything, they chose her because she was the cast member who would lift out the easiest.
Because Andrew Phung is developing his own CBC show now, called Run the Burbs.
Having a character named “kimchi” will never not sound racist. Like a Chinese dude name “Rice Ball”.
Andrew Phung, the actor who played Kimchee, is slated to be starring in his own show soon, one that he co-created.
I can’t really mention any details without spoilers, but the way they wrapped up the series seemed to be leaving that possibility open, possibly even reprising one of the through-lines of the original show.
Transforming him from comic relief in somebody else’s show to the protagonist of his own might take some doing, but he has grown in the course of the original and could continue doing so.The hardest thing to explain would be the absence of his best friend, if Simu Liu is indeed burning his bridges with regard to spinoffs/sequels…
The character isn’t owned by CBC, I believe.The actor is getting his own show, though, called “Run the Burbs”:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/kims-convenience-andrew-phung-run-the-burbs-1.5986776
“Kimchee anywhere doing anything” SIGN ME THE FUCK UP
Yeah, Kimchi and his hijinks would be the only spinoff I’d give much thought to.
A road-trip movie with Mr. Chin, Mr. Mehta, and Appa. A collection of circumstances forces them to drive cross-country to rescue Ginger.
I never knew I needed this spinoff. Until now.
Actually the actor who played Kimchee is getting his own series on CBC, that he created and is producing. Not a spinoff though.
…Appa leading a team of “space rangers” who fly “star fighters” patrolling and protecting some kind of new galactic “republic”…He does have sci-fi cred after being in an episode of Dark Matter: https://darkmatter.fandom.com/wiki/Borsa
Pictured: Sci-fi cred
In the Dark Matter episode I linked, he’s the boss scientist on some secret project and every time he dismissed another character I muttered “OK, see you!” under my breath,
Canada has produced some fantastic sci-fi series!!
Yeah, the Shannon spin-off is so completely wild. How could they not see that’s an insanely bad look!!!
I would watch the fuck out of a Mr. Mehta/Mr. Chin show. If they want a cameo from a white actor, get that annoying-ass handyman Frank to stop by.
Holy shit *yes.* Mr. Chin trying to use Mr. Mehta as his wingman in every bar, too.
Appa leading a team of “space rangers” who fly “star fighters” patrolling and protecting some kind of new galactic “republic”, etcThis is a good idea. I’d watch this.
Remember how they tried to give a spinoff to the one white guy in the Aladdin remake before the movie had even released?
Did it ever occur to you, that perhaps the producers were looking for a while person to fill a roll, within a story that they wrote? Did it ever occur to you, that nobody is obligated to hire a Korean and write another show, based around that person?
“overwhelmingly white” Speaking as a Canadian, this describes Canada.
God damn, I hate reading this. I love the show a lot. One takeaway from this article – man, if the show can be that good in such a non-supportive environment… imagine what it would be like with a company that championed the thing.
I wonder why he and the cast didn’t say all this while the show was going on. Oh that’s right they wanted to keep working in these horrible conditions.
Kim’s Convenience is Norman Lear level television and writing.
It’s very disheartening to hear about the treatment and the show’s future. All In The Family, The Jefferson’s, Facts of Life had 9 seasons. To have a show this powerful, treat its cast in such a manner, is a travesty.
Watch Kim’s Convenience and buy the boxed set if possible.
(Norman Lear didn’t do Facts of Life)
the show was meh
Why doesn’t he just go produce his own show?
Money
“On Wednesday, CBC announced Liu as a co-creator of a new CBC Gem series called Hello (Again), alongside Canadian writer-producer Nathalie Younglai. The young adult romantic drama is scheduled to launch in winter 2022.”
Look I know I am about to be that guy but boy this show failed to land, for me. The first few episodes were so amateur, corny and ham-fisted that I never watched any more. It was pitched to me as “as good as Schitt’s Creek” and boy was it not, to me.
How does he feel about the genocide being committed against my people in forced labor and sterilization camps all over China and Burma. Or Iraq. Syria. Bosnia. Afghanistan. Yemen. Libya. Palestine. Egypt. 40+ years of bombing, war, murder against civilians… Yea. Not important. Those are JUST muslims. We need to address REAL discrimination.. Rich asians not having representation outside of the you know. Massive chinese movie industry. Japanese industry. Korean industry. Vietnamese industry. Boohoohoo! The muslim slaves dont work hard enough pressing your DVDs huh.Watch me cry you a river of crocodile tears.
“How can you cancel this beloved show? Also the writing is racist and bad” is the new “the food is terrible and the portions are too small.”
That’s your fucking take? Get tae fuck.
I saw that too. “The showrunner was terrible and did nothing for us. Also would it have killed him to send us a nice goodbye note?”
That’s not a great analogy, though. He’s part of the team that makes it, so to stick with the restaurant analogy, he’s the cook. So yeah, he could technically leave (if permitted by contracts), but he also has incentive to stay because that’s his livelihood. In addition to that, imagine if he’s Korean working in one of a very few Korean restaurants in the country, and one of a handful of Korean restaurants that is actually popular. It’s natural if he feels some kind of desire to stay especially if he feels the “restaurant” has a lot of potential that he might help to reach, even though there are flaws in the workplace. (Also, people work in place they don’t like all the time, for one reason or another).
As much as I agree with his anger, I’m always annoyed by actors who think they can just showrun. It’s a different discipline entirely. It can be done, but it should happen either from the ground up at the very beginning of the show or gradually over the course of a show. Not “hey, we lost our showrunner last season so hand those duties over to us now.”
I mean I agree with you that they are different disciplines but it sounds like that was a last stitch “if no one else will do it, let us give it a try”. Which is fair
“If no one else will make me the centre of attention and pay me a ton of money for a part that others can do, and one for which I’m hypocritically not even suited for by my own terms, due to being Chinese and not Korean, a difference for which I would castigate any White Person for not knowing the difference … I might as well give it a try”.
The problem is, in this case “giving them a try” would mean spending a large amount of money. And big corporations are notoriously skeptical about spending lots of money just to “give inexperienced people a try” because it seems “fair”…
Fair from a moral/ethical standpoint. Not really from a capitalist “You’re not paying for this.” standpoint. I had similar feelings about what went down with The Walking Dead and Darabont or Community and Harmon. As much as I agree with the creators in those situations, ultimately they’re not paying the tab. This situation is even harder in my view because at least Darabont and Harmon were hired to showrun. (In Darabont’s case I was much less on his side because he had never run a show before and was making ridiculous demands. I understood why he made them but felt he was being rude and unprofessional.)
I really want to know what the infighing was about (screen time? pay? other stuff I haven’t thought about?).I have a weird issue with Asian actors not being able to get the accents correct. I couldn’t watch Fresh off the Boat because Constance Wu’s accent is so horrendously not Chinese. The first time I tried to watch it, I thought she was a Korean-American actress that just used a Korean accent because she knew most of the audience couldn’t tell the difference. The parents on Kim’s Convenience sometimes were OK, but often their fake accent was noticeably fake.
So basically it was run like every other sitcom TV show. Lost respect.
Whoa now, Simu Liu, don’t go burning those CBC bridges in case your Marvel career doesn’t pan out.
It’s hard to know what the real store is here, this is Liu’s take, but what are the other actors’ opinions? Choi and White’s? In any case, 5 seasons is a solid run, especially for a rather small time CBC show.
“But I remain resentful of all of the circumstances that led to the one non-Asian character getting her own show.”Andrew Phung got his own show out of this too, no? He’s to be starring in a show he co-created. So that ain’t nothing.
He is great in the “Hot Grandma” episode of Awkwafina’s show. Dude is like Marvel ripped, has he been recruited by Disney or something?
One more day, one more shift in the race grift mines. Truly these are the poor exploited railroad builders of our generation. /S
Wow.. who knew Simu Liu was a racist.
This is hilarious.1. Write your own show. 2. Hire whatever producers you want.3. Stop your complaining. If you’re upset with a mostly non-asian set of producers – tough luck. Stop crying after knowingly working for these people for all those seasons.4. I want to remind you. This isn’t Korea, India or Zimbabwe. If you don’t like a group of producers, you know precisely where you can go.
Not likely to get as much attention, but the actress who played Umma went all in on backing Simu Liu up on twitter yesterday – she admittedly has trouble sequencing a thread but if you click on her replies she goes into a lot more detail on the troubles with the final season (and some of the seasons prior).