In collaboration with Netflix Animation and Titmouse, Inc., Echo Wu has joined Ali Wong and brought the latest in the supernatural genre, Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld. In this interview, The Hollywood Handle got to speak with both Echo Wu and Ali Wong and discuss the rampant increase in leak culture and the importance of cultural representation in media.
What Is Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld About?
Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld is an animated series that follows Jentry Chau (Ali Wong), a Chinese-American teen who moves back to her small Texas town from South Korea after discovering a demon king is hunting her for the supernatural powers she’s been working her whole life to repress. With the help of her weapons expert great-aunt and a millennia-old jiangshi (Chinese hopping vampire), Jentry must now fight an entire underworld’s worth of monsters while balancing the horrors of high school.
Interview W/ Echo Wu And Ali Wong
Christopher Mills (THH): Which episodes are both of you excited for audiences to see?
Echo Wu: I know Ali’s favourite episodes, but I’ll let you answer that one.
Ali Wong: I always say, just because Shang Wang is one of my best friends. He’s the godfather of my children and a fantastic stand-up comedian. When he appears in episode four, that always makes me laugh. To hear his voice come through that creature that takes up so much room on the screen in that one shot always makes me laugh so hard. I’ve shown it to my children, the father of my children, and anyone who’s close to Shang that will watch it, will laugh so hard. That’s my personal favourite.
Echo Wu: I think episode 5 is probably one of my favourites. It’s this AA story between the two boys, the two love interests. In love triangles, there’s not always well-developed guys that the girls are going after, and so you see from their point of view why they’re in love with Jentry.
Christopher Mills (THH): Unfortunately, earlier in the year, Jentry Chau was part of the larger Netflix leak and I was wondering how that impacted both of you, the team and how we can combat things like that in the future?
Ali Wong: I didn’t know that!
Echo Wu: It’s one of those things that you want to continue to be excited for the show no matter what, like you want to put all your excitement and your energy because people have worked so hard on this. Ali and myself built a whole crew of people who were on the show and so you want to support them by just being excited for the release.
Christopher Mills (THH): It happens so often whether it be the film industry or the gaming industry and I just wanted to get your thoughts on it as we don’t really get to hear how it affects the creators behind it. I don’t think audiences really understand how much it can affect the team when they’re going out their way to search for these things on the internet.
Echo Wu: Yeah, it’s definitely heartbreaking when you see all your hard work get put out and there’s so much anticipation for the show, but I think the best thing you can do is kind of be grateful that there is excitement for the show and be someone that doesn’t let that kind of thing ruin the whole celebration of the show’s release. I think we put so much effort into anticipating its release and wanting it to come out in a really big bang.
Christopher Mills (THH): When watching Jentry Chau, it doesn’t feel like a television series but feels more like a movie with cinematic it feels and looks. It also seemed like there was some inspiration from Asian horror, especially in the first few moments of episode one and I was wondering what were your inspirations for the show?
Echo Wu: Definitely there’s some Asian horror in the show; we watched some sequences from The Ring and things like that. It’s also inspiration that comes from what we think a teenage girl would want to be inspired by. For that, it’s like K-dramas and horror sequences; we looked at some anime too for the show, and we took a lot of inspiration from things like Junji Ito to Euphoria (2011) to Naruto and Avatar [The Last Airbender]. It’s all kind of just a conglomeration of things people were really excited about.
Christopher Mills (THH): For my final question, I personally understand why I enjoy seeing someone that looks like me as a lead character, whether it be in a cartoon or in a live-action film or show. I was wondering, why is it important for you to ensure that there is something for Asians around the world or Asian Americans around the world to be able to see themselves in something like this?
Ali Wong: It’s just very personal for me because I have kids. The closest thing I had to seeing something like myself was maybe Jubilee in X-Men, and that was like, is she? [Echo and Ali laugh] That was not clear if she’s Asian American or not. It’s also a different thing to see someone because there are plenty of opportunities for them to see Asian characters, but not Asian American characters. People always talk about seeing someone who looks like them, but what about hearing someone who looks like them? I think that’s really important for my kids because it just makes them feel like, “Okay, we’re capable of that.”
Just seeing options and multitudes of what Asian Americans are capable of and what we can do. I mean that will always be something that I’m very excited and passionate about. Forget animation for a second, but just for my daughters to see someone like Echo, who came to me when she was 26 years old, out of school, so determined with this beautiful creative vision for this show that was so personal to her experience growing up in Texas to being passionate about Chinese mythology and anime. Just for my children to see someone like her, not just being so gifted but working so hard and leading with warmth. That will be something always exciting and personal for me.
Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld begins streaming December 5 on Netflix.
