The Chinese animated film Little Door Gods is getting a makeover for its English-language debut. Deadline reports that the Weinstein Company’s English-language version of the film, The Guardian Brothers, will feature the likes of Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Mel Brooks, and woke teen Zendaya doing the voice work. The Guardian Brothers centers on a family-owned wonton-soup shop that has passed through the generations, left in the hands of a mother (Kidman) and her daughter Raindrop (Zendaya). The Guardians are a group of spiritual protectors who watch over Earth. Streep will voice the narrator telling the story.
It’s a curious decision to announce the voices of the new English-language version without any Asian-American actors, particularly at this moment, when Doctor Strange is being dragged for whitewashing a traditionally Asian role. As a point of comparison, Disney’s Mulan, from 1998, featured the voices of a number of Asian-American actors, from Lea Salonga to B.D. Wong to Ming Na Wen. “We are thrilled that Harvey and the Weinstein team share our enthusiasm for this very Chinese film,†director Gary Wang said. It is unclear if Streep, Zendaya, and Kidman will adopt Chinese accents for the film.