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"Crazy Rich Asians'" Singaporean star joins CW's "Kung Fu" series

Tan Kheng Hua (R) in her role as Kerry Chu, mother of protagonist Rachel Chu (Constance Wu, L) in "Crazy Rich Asians".
Tan Kheng Hua (R) in her role as Kerry Chu, mother of protagonist Rachel Chu (Constance Wu, L) in "Crazy Rich Asians".

19 Feb – If you enjoyed Tan Kheng Hua's motherly role in 2018's "Crazy Rich Asians", you're going to love her in the upcoming "Kung Fu" reboot series.

The Singaporean actress will be starring as one half of the series protagonist's parents, according to a report by Deadline.

Tan will be paired up with Hong Kong American actor Tzi Ma as the mother Mei-Li and father Jin Chen, respectively, a couple of restaurateurs with secrets that threaten to destroy their lives.

Their estranged daughter, a young Chinese-American woman who drops out of college following a quarter-life crisis, has just returned from a life-changing journey to a remote monastery in China. When she sees the crime and corruption in her hometown, she decides to use her martial arts skills to protect the place, while looking for the assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor.

Like in "Crazy Rich Asians", Tan will also be playing a mother in the rebooted "Kung Fu" series.
Like in "Crazy Rich Asians", Tan will also be playing a mother in the rebooted "Kung Fu" series.

Tan, who is forever etched in the hearts of "Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd" fans as Margaret Phua, was most recently seen in Netflix's "Medical Police". She also previously played Empress Dowager in "Marco Polo". Her other English-language works include guest roles in "Magnum P.I." and "Grey's Anatomy".

Film-wise, Tan's most recent works include being part of the star-studded cast of the abovementioned Singapore-based Hollywood movie "Crazy Rich Asians" and Malaysian drama film "The Garden of Evening Mists".

The reboot of the classic series "Kung Fu" was picked up by America's The CW in late January. Originally developed at Fox, the series is a reimagining with a female lead.

The original series was an American action-adventure martial arts western drama that ran for three seasons in the 1970s, starring David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine, the orphaned son of an American man and a Chinese woman who grows up to become a martial arts expert and Shaolin priest.