The CW has found its star for the upcoming gender-swapped reboot of the classic TV series Kung Fu, with Variety reporting that Olivia Liang (Legacies) has been cast in the lead role in the pilot.
Liang will play Nicky Chen, a Chinese-American woman who drops out of college and decides to go on a life-changing journey to a monastery in China. However, when she returns home, she finds her town overrun with crime and corruption and puts her newfound martial arts skills and Shaolin values to work cleaning up the neighborhood whilst hunting for the assassin who killed her mentor.
The Kung Fu pilot was originally set up at Fox, but shifted to The CW this past November, as well as switching up its creative team with Albert Kim exiting the project and Christina M. Kim (Blindspot) coming on board to write and executive produce with Greg Berlanti and Sarah Schechter of Berlanti Productions.
In addition to this potential TV reboot, Deadpool 2 and Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw helmer David Leitch also recently signed on to direct a big screen remake of the series for Universal Pictures.
Originally published March 2, 2020. Updated March 1, 2020.
