Kung Fu Season 2 Trailer: Celebrate The Year Of The Tiger With Some Martial Arts Action
Just in time for the Chinese New Year on February 1 — and the Beijing Winter Olympics on February 4 — The CW has released a trailer for the second season of "Kung Fu." The series is a modern update of the TV shows "Kung Fu" and "Kung Fu: The Legend Continues," led by the late David Carradine. The new show stars Olivia Liang as Nicky Shen, a young Chinese-American woman who drops out of Harvard after "a quarter-life crisis," according to the official log line. Nicky embarks on a "life-changing journey to an isolated monastery in China" and comes back a martial arts expert, ready to fight crime in San Francisco.
If any of this sounds similar to Marvel's "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings," just remember that Nicky was doing what Shang-Chi did before he did it onscreen. "Kung Fu" premiered on The CW in April 2021, months in advance of the theatrical release of Marvel's movie; in fact, Liang was already back on set shooting the second season by that time. According to Deadline, "Kung Fu" debuted with 1.4 million viewers, giving The CW its best Wednesday night ratings in seven years, so it was a no-brainer that the network would renew it for a second season.
In a September 2021 tweet, Liang showed off her "Shang-Chi" bus kick and jokingly told Simu Liu to watch his back after she'd "trained for 300 more hours." Below, you can see how some of that training paid off in the trailer for "Kung Fu" season 2.
Kung Fu Year of the Tiger Part 1 Trailer
2022 is the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac, and the Chinese New Year is just around the corner with celebrations beginning on Tuesday, February 1. "Kung Fu" leans into that in the trailer above, which reveals that the first episode of season 2 is titled "Year of the Tiger Part 1" and teases the emergence of Nicky's cousin as "the key to everything."
Set in the Old West, the original "Kung Fu," starring Carradine (of further "Kill Bill" fame), was sort of the "Iron Fist" of its day — back before everyone realized it was a little weird to have a white man headlining a show named after a martial art that originated in China. Though Carradine's character was half-Chinese, the actor himself was mostly of Irish descent. This contemporary revival and reimagining of "Kung Fu" with Liang has engaged a new generation of fans and made strides to redress the whitewashing of its predecessor.
This season, "Kung Fu" is moving into a new 9 p.m. EST time slot after "The Flash" on Wednesdays. The second season of "Kung Fu" premieres on The CW on March 9, 2022.