Family From Tang

“Family From Tang” is directed by Junhao Ma and Jingwei Zhou, where in the year 730 during Chinese Tang Dynasty, a family of tomb raiders opens a noodle shop to cover their identities while planning to steal a priceless artifact from the Chinese First Emperor’s tomb. Though they didn’t anticipate the tomb to be hard to find, they mistakenly open the wrong tomb and release a talkative and outgoing Alien, forcing them to have to hide and take care of the creature.

Much like the vision director Junhao Ma described about this story, “Even though it’s set in an ancient time, it can easily become a way to reflect the modern society.” I had a fun time watching this introduction to “Family From Tang”.

Before diving into my thoughts on the show, I want to preface that I have not seen any other episodes of “Family From Tang” other than the pilot episode introducing the characters and tone going forward for the series. That being said, I feel I have a good grasp of the story and have to say after seeing the pilot I am very interested in continuing the story.

The tone was playful and fun, much like a sitcom revolving around an “E.T.” type character. The pacing through the pilot was very even and watchable, there weren’t any slowed down moments it all worked great. I liked the cinematography and set design and how they were able to immerse us in eastern culture with how detailed and well build the sets, props and location were done. The cinematography was beautiful facilitating a big-budget feel to the series.

I think there is a lot of places the characters can go with their development as the show continues, however, there are great foundations laid with the pilot. The focus is mainly on the family who is searching for the tomb, and their relationships with each other that are drawn out just enough for you to connect emotionally with their cause and want them to succeed. The “alien” isn’t featured heavily in the pilot, (mostly due to it being a sample of what’s to come with the next episode) but the moments where he is in he shines in. I really like the reversal of having a white male be the foreign alien to this family because it is a reflection of the current issues today with whitewashing roles, they were able to take that and make it funny and different.

The first episode of “Family From Tang” is off to a great start and I expect it to be a fantastic adventure sitcom. It has relatable characters and a unique plot twist that has a lot of momentum and material for the coming episodes. It is a wonderful mix of old eastern culture, comedy and sci-fi.