Jentryfication

Yesterday, I wrote a rave review about a video game. Today, I'm writing one about a TV show. I do occasionally worry I'm turning into that guy from the Fast Show who thinks everything is "brilliant". According to the Fast Show wiki - because of course there's a Fast Show wiki - he's called "Brilliant Kid". Well, he would be, I guess.

I always thought he might be based on Andy Kershaw, a DJ with eclectic tastes who was much in the media around that time (And also in the news, for reasons we won't go into although they're probably not the reasons you first thought of, for once...) Kershaw was often infuriatingly enthusiastic about things, frequently for no very good reason that anyone but he could see, or at least that's my recollection. He looked a bit like Paul Whitehouse does as the character, too. I seem to remember he wore a cagoule quite often.

I had the old sketch show in mind because Mrs Bhagpuss has been watching it on YouTube recently. Some of it still stands up although I do think it helps if you've been drinking, as I mostly would have been when I watched it the first time round. But we're not here to reminisce about TV in the '90s, are we? Are we? No, I thought not.

We're here to rave about TV in the 2020s, or I am anyway. It's good, isn't it? Some of it. There's also a lot, so it's easy to miss some of the good bits, especially when they're hidden away in the endless sub-sections of your second-favorite streaming service. 

We all make a conscious decision whether or not to watch the likes of Squid Game or Stranger Things (Watched the latter, haven't seen the former.) because it's hard not to hear about zeitgeisty phenomena like those, but we rely on word of mouth or reviews or blind chance to find about short-run shows that barely pick up any traction. Even popular, successful or critically acclaimed shows can slip past if they're marketed to a demographic that doesn't include us. 

So, anyone else seen Jentry Chau vs the Underworld? 

Thought not.

As per Wikipedia, to which I really ought to donate again, given how often I keep referencing the hell out of it here, "Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld is an American animated supernatural-action television series created by Echo Wu." It came out on Netflix just before Christmas and because Netflix thinks I'm some kind of animation-obsessed teenager (Can't imagine how it got that idea...) the show immediately turned up in my recommends.

Netflix recommends are actually pretty good, I think. Certainly one whole heck of a lot better than Prime, which doesn't seem to have a clue who I am or what I've watched, judging by the kind of shows and movies tries to push me towards. You'd almost think they had something other than my tastes and interests in mind...

I wouldn't say I trust Netflix to make my choices for me but I will often actively consider what it's suggesting. In this case, it was pushing at an open door because this is a show I very well might have watched, had I happened across it organically. Then again, I let a lot of shows like this drift by. There's only so much time, so if Netflix wants to do some of the sifting for me, that's fine by me.

In this case it all turned out to be more than fine. Jentry Chau (As I'm calling it for short.) is excellent. It's a thirteen-episode season centering on a Chinese-American girl who discovers the powers she didn't even know she had have been promised to a demon when she turns sixteen. Guess when that's going to be!

The show has a number of strengths, one of which is the ever-changing mystery surrounding Jentry's past. Almost nothing in her life is ever as it seems, then or now. No-one tells her the truth, everyone lies to her, everyone is hiding something and the rules are constantly changing. 

Revelations follow discoveries from the first episode to the last and although it could have seemed like a year's worth of soap opera plots condensed into a few weeks, I found all of it made sense and held together. It's an extremely well-crafted narrative.

Another strong positive is the characterization, particularly Jentry herself. She's a convincingly adolescent mix of self-assured confidence, insecurity and impulsiveness, always behaving and reacting in ways that feel authentic and plausible, even when they're clearly ill-advised, wreckless or uninformed. 

If anything, she's perhaps a little too grounded at times for someone who's been consistently lied to, tricked or threatened by just about everyone who ought to have her best interests at heart. As the season continues it becomes evident that everyone from her parents to her guardian to her classmates to her school principal just can't be relied upon to be honest or even approriate. Although there are some people who play straight with her, it's hardly surprising she struggles to know who to trust. 

In the face of the endless torrent of bad news, disaster and betrayal, she stays strong for far longer than anyone would have a right to expect but perhaps the most convincing moment in her journey of self-discovery comes when, at a very crucial and excruciatingly public moment, she just can't any more. I'm not sure I remember seeing a supposed superhero simply break down in tears and give up when called upon to put herself in the way of danger, the way Jentry does at one point.

There are, of course, many supernatural shows starring teenage girls, animated and live action both. They can all become a bit of a blur. The USP of this one is that all the monsters are taken directly from Chinese folklore. 

This does give the show a very distinctive look and tone. The demons look markedly different from the norm and behave somewhat differently too. It's also refreshing, as a viewer, not to have to deal with a whole bunch of preconceptions every time a new monster appears. Most of the time I had no clue what the creatures I was looking at were capable of, nor whether they were likely to be good, neutral or evil.

The animation is solid, not spectacular, but the character design is excellent and the big fight scenes are satisfyingly explosive. When Jentry gains full control of her powers and really lets rip it gave me some serious Dark Phoenix vibes.

Although Jentry Chau makes for a pretty good superhero show when it wants to, it's really more of a coming-of-age story. There's a good deal of teenage slice-of-life stuff around Jentry's home-life (If you consider a houseful of ghosts, one of whom is your dead great-aunt and supposed legal guardian to be just a normal family.) and schooling (If you consider having to deal with a principal who believes you're the incarnation of his obsessive conspiracy theories or a classmate who's actually a demon in disguise to be just another school day.)

I got a little confused about both Jentry's ethnicity and lineage at times, what with the show opening with her at school neither in Texas nor China but in Seoul and with her "gugu" being her great-aunt not her grandmother, but I found ambiguity, even if it was only in my own mind, helped make the whole thing feel more laminated. There are layers of supposition, belief, expectation and reality all overlapping and clashing and it really beds the whole thing in and gives it weight.

And Jentry Chau does have weight. Even gravitas, at times. It's PG-rated on IMDB but I thought it was quite a grown-up show, thematically. It's about things that matter and it doesn't offer easy answers to very difficult questions. It's based in part (Presumably not the demons...) on showrunner Echo Wu's childhood and adolescence in Dallas, Texas and a sense of personal experience infuses much of the narrative.

I also found it quite scary. The Chinese demons and monsters are visually unsettling but also behave in a disturbingly demonic fashion, often as not. The mogui is exceptionally sinister and unnerving, especially when it's revealed in its true form late in the season. 

Much to his own disappointment, the exception to the scariness rule is Ed, the jiangshi who becomes Jentry's best friend and supernatural sidekick and threatens to steal just about every scene he's in. His transition from would-be terrifying supernatural entity to wannabe social media superstar is very entertaining, if maybe not quite the stretch it ought to be.

There's much, much more I could say about the show, not least the clear and apparent line of descent I could trace from two of my favorite shows, Buffy and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, but I'll refrain. The final thing I'm going to mention is the music, which really stands out. 

The opening theme is from a song called Flame by the LA-based "global" girl group KATSEYE, whose origin is a whole story of its own. It rocks. There are enough songs scattered throughout the thirteen episodes to fill a double album, which is exactly what's happened, although in actuality only the first disc has songs by established artists, the second being mostly music written for the show itself.

As this reddit thread suggests, a lot of people are wary of engaging with any Netflix series these days, thanks to the platform's propensity for cancelling shows before they've barely begun. In the case of Jentry Chau, though, there need be no such worries. The one and so far only season has a clear and complete narrative arc that concludes satisfactorily, with no cliffhangers and no major loose ends.

It does, however, also have huge potential for further stories featuring the same characters and there's enough left unexplained in the backstory to justify at least another season. So far, there's no news on whether there will be one although both Echo Wu and Ali Wong, who voices Jentry, would like it if there was.

Let's hope they get their wish. It's mine, too. In the meantime, if you're in any way inclined towards this kind of thing, don't let this gem pass you by.