Disney+ revealed a brand new exclusive poster art for their new series American Born Chinese created by multidisciplinary visual artist James Jean at the series premiere event at SXSW.
The newly designed art depicts the journey of the main character, Jin Wang, and reflects Jean’s own experiences as an Asian American. Jean recently issued a commissioned art piece for the seven-time Academy Award-winning film “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” which had its world premiere at SXSW last year.
Jean’s new design captures Jin on his way to school, with Chinese mythological hero The Monkey King shape-shifting into his backpack. While the backpack alludes to the idea of cultural and emotional baggage, the flora emerging from within is a pastiche of the paintings of Giuseppe Castiglione, an Italian missionary who became a court painter in China during the Qing dynasty and revolutionized traditional silk scroll painting by combining Western rendering techniques with traditional Chinese aesthetics.
“American Born Chinese,” the genre-hopping action-comedy based on the graphic novel of the same name by Gene Luen Yang, tells the story of Jin Wang, an average teenager juggling his high school social life with his home life. When he meets a new foreign student on the first day of the school year, even more worlds collide as Jin is unwittingly entangled in a battle of Chinese mythological gods.
The coming-of-age adventure features an all-star international cast, including Academy Award-winning actors Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), Ben Wang (“Chang Can Dunk”), two-time International Emmy® Award nominee Yeo Yann Yann (“Wet Season”), Chin Han (“Mortal Kombat”), Daniel Wu (“Reminiscence”), former Taekwondo champion Jimmy Liu and Sydney Taylor (“Just Add Magic”).
