Actor, producer and content creator Shuan Hu has announced her latest Australian project during a busy period that saw her release the Christmas-themed pilot Austr-Asian on YouTube, sign a content deal with Tubi, and launch her own production company, Golden Rabbit Entertainment.
Shot in Brisbane, the film centers on May (Fu), a young woman who brings her American boyfriend (Peter Sudarso) home to meet his Asian-Australian parents, but their family Christmas takes an unexpected turn. The pilot, produced by director Fu with directors Sian Fleming and Joel Stephen Fleming of 13th Street Films, was produced with support from Screen Queensland and is intended as a proof of concept for a full-length series.
Lenny Lim, who played Fu’s mother in “Five Blind Dates,” will star as Mae’s mother, and Anthony Brandon Wong, who they worked together on “Family Law,” will play Mae’s father. The cast is rounded out by Sen Xiao, who plays Sen, Mei’s attractive ex-boyfriend and neighbor.
The pilot release comes largely on the heels of Hu’s Tubi deal announced last month.
The LA-based creator has more than 12 million total followers across platforms, including 8 million subscribers on YouTube and 4.6 million followers on TikTok (@TheOneShu). Her series Baby Shu & Fwends is just one of five projects from around the world selected for the Tubi for Creators program, and is currently streaming on the platform alongside weekly drops on her YouTube channel. A genre-bending anthology, each half-hour episode is built around an independent conceit, but explores the absurd and darkly comical side of growing up online, centered around resourceful teen Baby Shue.
Baby Shu & Fwends is Hu’s first project produced under the Golden Rabbit Entertainment Banner, which he launched late last year. The company specializes in scripted comedies and dramas, digital-first series, feature films, and branded content with a focus on cultural authenticity and female-led stories.
After working on series such as The Family Law and Ronny Chieng: International Student, Hu moved to Los Angeles about five years ago because she felt there weren’t enough career opportunities for people of color in Australia.
In America, she took improv classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade and fell in love with writing skits. She started posting her comedy online and built a huge presence online. She continues to straddle traditional film production (Five Blind Dates, which she wrote, produced and starred in, premiered on Amazon early last year) and online content production.
“It has been an exciting season of growth and I am grateful to be able to share what lies ahead,” Fu told IF.
“My new series Baby Shu and Fwends, available exclusively on Tubi, is another career milestone. Also, with the establishment of Golden Rabbit Entertainment, a recent shoot for Australian Asians, and several other exciting projects in the works, I feel incredibly lucky and energized by what is unfolding.”
