In a recent interview with GQ, Hong Kong star Donnie Yen noted that Caine, his character in the upcoming action blockbuster "John Wick: Chapter 4," had originally been given a more common Chinese name. The choice bothered Yen, who lobbied successfully to have the character renamed. "Why does he always have to be called Shang or Chang?" he said in the interview. "Why do you have to be so generic?"
Ouch! Having made peace with my own widely used, boringly monosyllabic surname years ago, I read that story with no small amusement. And I thought about it more than once during "Chang Can Dunk," a likable, thoroughly generic Disney+ movie about a 5-foot-8-inch Chinese American teenager trying to do something that high school rivals, YouTube commenters and basic physiology rudely suggest he cannot.
Here, of course, the genericism serves a larger purpose. Recycling, long one of Hollywood's favorite activities, has also become its preferred shortcut to ostensibly more inclusive storytelling. At last, the logic goes, even long-marginalized Asian American audiences can see some version of themselves in the kind of conventional, rotely inspiring underdog sports drama they've long been denied. Progress, right?
