Beef is the latest in Asian American-led stories
Beef is a new Asian-led series on Netflix that follows the aftermath of a road rage incident between two strangers. Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) is a failing contractor with a chip on his shoulder. He goes head-to-head with Amy Lau (Ali Wong), a self-made entrepreneur with a picturesque life. The increasing stakes of their feud unravel their lives and relationships in this darkly comedic and deeply moving series.
The 10-episode series will make you feel a range of emotions. From anxious and uncomfortable and from hopeful to desperate. The show also has more than its fair share of WTF moments.
Beef also features newcomer Young Mazino, with familiar faces including Joseph Lee (Searching, Star Trek: Picard), Ashley Park (Joy Ride), Justin H. Min (The Umbrella Academy), David Choe (The Choe Show) and more.
Cold Tea Collective heard from some of the cast and creatives about this new Asian American drama.
How Ali Wong and Steven Yeun connect to their characters in Beef
Beef is written to make us interrogate our long-held beliefs about our values, boundaries and intergenerational trauma.
‘Amy’, played by Wong, is a successful entrepreneur who is looking for an escape from her seemingly picture-perfect life. She is the breadwinner in the family who came from humble beginnings. Her family is her motivator.
We asked the Chinese-Vietnamese American comedian about how this relates to her own life. Wong describes it as “that feeling where everything’s going wrong…and it’s just all piled on and you’re like, ‘I have no time to enjoy the things that I worked really hard for,’” Wong says. This theme of questioning what ‘having it all’ truly means is further explored in the series and what Wong often explores in her comedy specials.
Yeun’s character Danny is constantly caught between his obligations as eldest son to traditional Korean parents and survival.
The Oscar-nominated actor says his character ‘Danny’ makes him face his own shame about himself. “To play the comedy of Danny is to lean into the unfortunate drama of his life.”
In this role, Yeun found himself judging the character for his choices, cringing and trying to make it all make sense. What the show does well is showing how ‘Danny’ eventually does make it make sense, even if in a flawed way.
When art imitates life: Beef reflects the realities of the diaspora
Beef is written to question our life’s decisions, both past and present.
Creator Lee Sung Jin’s own road rage incident inspired the story. “[They] honked at me, said a bunch of things and raced off…for some reason that day I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll follow you,” the writer and creator explains. “I thought there was something there about people who are very stuck in their subjective views of reality and they’re projecting assumptions onto the other person,” says Lee.
In contrast to productions such as Everything Everywhere All at Once or Shang-Chi, Beef doesn’t root itself in fantasy, saving the world, or sacrificing for the better of humanity. Each character is flawed and has the ability to both delight and disgust us.
Beef is distinctly Asian American without being on the nose about it. Themes such as identity, trauma and cultural stereotypes were naturally written into the script and scenes. “[We were] just trying to write characters that feel real,” says the show’s creator.
From the soundtrack that undertones the scenes, to actual musical performances you’d see in your 90’s Korean church setting (or even modern-day karaoke room), Beef’s vernacular of culturally-specific creative choices perfectly underscore the storyline. This is all to highlight the relationships between the characters that thoughtfully reflect a dynamic range of characters we’d see in everyday life.
Going beyond stereotypes and redefining Asian male masculinity
Cold Tea Collective spoke with Young Mazino (‘Paul Cho’) and Joseph Lee (‘George Nakai’). We ask how they draw from their own experiences for their roles.
Referencing a scene with a Korean church basketball tournament, having grown up in the Korean church community, Mazino jokes that “ball is life….it really defines you as a man at that point.”
Joseph Lee describes playing ‘George’ as a “meta experience.” The character is written to be very family-oriented, putting others’ needs above his own. “Especially in immigrant families, it is a very common thing that you see,” says Lee.
We asked Lee what advice he could give to his character if he could have a heart to heart with him. “I think I would just tell George to go inside your car for 20 minutes and just scream it all out,” he says.
“I’ve been trying to establish boundaries in my life through intense therapy and I feel that is ultimately George’s struggle…he doesn’t have an idea of himself. And so because of that, he doesn’t have boundaries with the people around him,” he says. “I actually found a lot of healing. At the end of it, I just wanted to give him a big hug.”
With such a range of characters in the show, Joseph Lee and Young Mazino share how their characters either subvert or support stereotypes of Asian American men.
“It’s interesting to be able to present something that actually exists, which is men that are struggling to define their own masculinity…That’s apparent not only within our characters, but that’s something that’s apparent in society in general,” says Lee.
Masculinity for ‘Paul Cho’ is represented differently. “For my character specifically, he takes pride in taking care of his body and representing himself to be a man of great physique. And yet, internally, he’s quite far from that. A lot of internal stuff gets spilled out when he encounters the chaos of Beef,” says Mazino.
There are additional notable performances that will make you clench your first and laugh at the same time: David Choe’s character is far from your model minority. Ashley Park’s character makes a shocking move in episode nine. Park’s real-life second cousin Justin H. Min’s character isn’t as squeaky clean as he pretends to be.
Although you may not completely identify with the characters, you’ve certainly seen people like them in your life. And none of them perform as caricatures of who we expect them to be.
Lee Sung Jin and the writing team keep us on our toes and challenge us to question our own biases.
You can now watch Beef on Netflix.
Stay tuned to Cold Tea Collective for a follow up story with more from Joseph Lee and Young Mazino.
