When he is tasked with showing new exchange student Wei-Chen (Jimmy Liu) around, he is unexpectedly thrust into a battle between mythical Chinese gods, including Sun Wukong (Daniel Wu) and Guanyin (Michelle Yeoh).

Commentators referred to it as one of the best offerings on Disney+ and praised the way it moved across cultural boundaries, its action sequences, and the performances of the cast, though criticism was aimed at its different plot from the source material and inaccuracies of Chinese mythological characters.

[4] Wei-Chen is revealed to be the son of Sun Wukong (portrayed by Daniel Wu), commonly known as the Monkey King, a legendary figure in Chinese literature.

So Wei-Chen stole his father's magical staff and is now, disguised as a high schooler, searching for the scroll in earthly California, convinced that Jin is the ordinary teenager from his prophetic dream.

It turned out that the reason for the initial interest was a search for properties that would promote "the word China or Chinese" leading up to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, said Yang.

Yu was aware of the difficulties of bringing the graphic novel to life onscreen but presented suggestions and ideas about how to expand the story and work with the complex plot line in a way that would speak to a new generation.

[18] When Quan was offered the role, he initially passed on it due to fear, telling the creative team "that this is the type of portrayal that we do not want to see in 2023," but after conversations with the team, he learned that as the series progresses, the audience would "get to meet the actor who plays Freddy Wong and understand the struggles that he went through — and also what it means to have this type of stereotypical portrayal of Asians, and what it does to a normal kid like Jin Wang (Ben Wang).

Cast members in attendance included Ben Wang, Daniel Wu, Chin Han and Sydney Taylor, with executive producers Kelvin Yu, Melvin Mar and Gene Luen Yang also present.

[30] On May 4, 2023, according to Jordan Williams of Screen Rant, "American Born Chinese recorded over 12.2 million attention signals online while ranking fifth on both Facebook and YouTube for the most engagement of May 2023 releases, according to Diesel Labs' data.

[34] Joel Keller of Decider stated, "While it took a bit of time to get our bearings with regards to what's going on in the Heavenly Realm, we still enjoyed the first episode of American Born Chinese because of the earthly part of the story, as well as the well-done action sequences.

"[36] Kristen Baldwin of Entertainment Weekly gave American Born Chinese an A− and described it as an "inviting blend of heartfelt coming-of-age humor and exhilarating martial-arts action.

"[37] William Quant of IGN gave the series a grade of 8 out of 10, called it a "fun, bold reimagining of the American coming-of-age tale," and praised the performances of the cast.