Simu Liu flexes creative muscles

Shang-Chi star headlines, co-produces sci-fi spy thriller series The Copenhagen Test

- Alison de Souza

Canadian actor Simu Liu made headlines in November when he called out what he saw as a “backslide” in Asian representation in Hollywood.

Posting on social media, he said, “Put some Asians in literally anything right now”, adding that Asian actors such as himself are fighting “a deeply prejudiced system” in the United States.

Yet, the 36-year-old China-born star undercuts his argument somewhat with his new show The Copenhagen Test, a science-fiction spy thriller he headlines and co-produces.

Debuting on Dec 27 on HBO Max, the eight-episode series is a drama Liu describes as a blend of Black Mirror (2011 to present) - an anthology series about technological dystopias and Inception, Christopher Nolan's 2010 sci-fi film about a thief stealing secrets by entering dreams.

Liu plays protagonist Alexander Hale, a first-generation Chinese-American intelligence agent who discovers his brain has been hacked.

“Nanomachines” have turned his ears into microphones and his eyes into cameras, giving the perpetrators access to all he hears and sees.