Hulu has issued a 10-episode order for an adaptation of Charles Yu’s Interior Chinatown with Taika Waititi on board to direct and Jimmy O. Yang set to play the show’s (and the book’s) main character, Willis Wu.
In the book, Willis Wu is stuck as a background character in a police procedural called Black & White. On Black & White, Willis is described as a Generic Asian Man whose highest aspiration is to attain the most sought-after role allowed to him: Kung Fu Guy. Willis is playing a part, and the novel leans into this by having much of the prose delivered in script format. The book isn’t just meta-commentary, however — it’s also about family and Willis’ relationships with his parents, the woman he loves and, later on, his daughter. It’s an amazing book, and justifiably won the National Book Award in Fiction. (Check out our interview with Yu about Interior Chinatown and his later works here!)
According to Variety, the adaptation will still have Yang’s Willis as a background actor in Black & White. While there, he “inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime” and begins to “unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, revealing certain family secrets and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.”
Yu—who also has extensive TV experience on shows like Westworld, Legion, and Sorry For Your Loss—will be showrunning and executive producing the series. No news yet on when it will go into production and make its way onto Hulu.
