Squashing the beef

ROAD rages are common occurrences in modern daily life, whether someone witnesses it as a third-person, is one of the several parties engaged in an incident, or comes across it online in a viral video.

Most of these instances are usually short-lived; an incident occurs, someone (or a group of people) acts out vehicular aggression, and then it ends, almost as though it never happened.

Netflix’s Beef uses a road rage incident with its characters taking the aggression and hostility a step further, beyond merely just a brief moment of anger and rage between two people in their cars.

After failing to get several hibachi grills refunded at a store, failing contractor Danny Cho (Steven Yuen) finds himself reversing his truck and nearly crashing into a car driven by businesswoman Amy Lau (Ali Wong).

Amy’s subsequent prolonged honking and then flipping him off causes Danny to snap, and he gets into a dangerous car chase with her that causes property damage, along with nearly killing him.

For anyone else, that would be the end of the entire incident, but this is Beef, and series creator Lee Sung Jin has no intent of ending the literal beef there.

The duo soon become obsessed with ruining each others’ professional and personal lives.

Not the usual comedy-drama

Despite the limited series only containing ten episodes, it’s impressive how much Beef packs in terms of story and character development, while also peeling away at the layers of social commentary, including the Korean-American and Christian dynamic.

Storytelling when it comes to Asian-Americans – or even Asians in Western media – often paints the similar tropes that goes along similar “colourful” narrative beats.

Kids born to Asian parents that migrated to America have to grow up in a Western society with parents breathing Asian values down their backs. They grow up to be happy and good contributors to society, and overall, they become success stories.

Jin’s Beef on the other hand, daringly goes into a much darker, depressive route.

For all intents and purposes, Danny is a loser. He has crippling depression, and walks a daily, dangerous line between “I’m okay” and “I’m actually going to kill myself”.

His construction company is a failure. His brother, Paul – played brilliantly by newcomer Young Mazino – is a “cryptobro” who has no real job, and sits around in their motel-apartment playing video-games all day.

His cousin, Isaac – also brilliantly brought to life by David Choe – is a criminal that just got out of prison after being incarcerated due to him running an illegal baby formula counterfeiting operation.

Amy and the facade she is living is no different. Every character is either broken or doing the breaking, depicted as critique at the underbelly of “Asian-Americanism” that is not often spotlighted in media.

Heavyweight performances

Beef’s subversive storytelling is just one of its many strong suits, particularly how it effortlessly blindsides viewers.

Then there’s also the performances from its predominantly Asian cast.

Far from the days of hiding under a dumpster in the middle of a zombie horde, Yeun has come far as an actor, with every major project he has been in being an improvement over the previous one. Beef has him flexing his capability as an actor in every possible direction, more than he did in 2018’s Burning.

Opposite Yeun, Wong – who is an established stand-up comedian – is the latest testament that comedians are secretly amazing dramatic actors if given the chance.

There is barely any “comedy” in Beef, yet Wong easily commands every scene she is in, from something as complex as her Amy seducing Paul, to scenes as simple as her freaking out over Danny urinating all over her bathroom.

Fingers are crossed that Beef and its two leads are acknowledged at the next Emmy Awards.

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