Michelle Yeoh reigns supreme (as she should!) in The Brothers Sun trailer

Any time Michelle Yeoh reminds us she’s an action queen is a good time. The actor, who won an Academy Award for Everything Everywhere All At Once earlier this year, will next lead Netflix’s upcoming The Brothers Sun. And if the first trailer is any indication, she is ready to kick ass as a mafia queen.

Co-created by Byron Wu and Brad Falchuk, the show is equal parts a dark action comedy and an intergenerational family saga. Yeoh plays Eileen “Mama” Sun, who lives in California with her son, Bruce (Sam Song Li). She’s hiding a gruesome truth from him, though: They belong to a gangster family back in Taiwan, and his father/leader of the group has just been assassinated. What? We all have secrets we keep from loved ones, some worse than others.

Anyway, the Sun family is now in danger because their enemies descend to the U.S. hoping to take Eileen and Bruce out, too. Thankfully, her older son Charles (Justin Chien) arrives just in time to protect them, finally bringing a clueless Bruce into the fight. On the plus side, at least he gets to train with none other than Eileen, who’s an expert herself. As seen in the newly released trailer, she uses tools and words as her weapon equally; a smart woman. It also looks like Eileen trying to connect with her children, along with Bruce and Charles’ sibling rivalry, will bring some much-needed humor into the mix.

As a bonus: Yeoh is an action star in her own right. From starring in a host of Hong Kong thrillers to Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to films like Reign of Assassins, The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, and more recently Marvel’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, she’s kind of done it all. Not to mention EEAAO, because she made history with her Oscar win for the film. She also starred in Disney+ American Born Chinese and Kenneth Branagh’s A Haunting In Venice earlier this year. It’s safe to say that despite a historic filmography, she’s just getting started. (She’s got the Wicked and Avatar films coming up, too).

Meanwhile, back to The Brothers Sun, Yeoh’s co-stars include Madison Hu, Alice Hewken, Joon Lee, Highdee Kuan, Jenny Yang, and Jon Xue Zhang. The eight episodes premiere on Netflix on January 4, 2024.