Lucy Liu works as a director on the set of CBS All Access Original Series "Why Women Kill." (Photo: VCG)

A new American web television series "Why women kill," set in multiple periods, follows the lives of three women facing problems in their marriages.  With five episodes already out, the show has been rated 9.3 out of 10 on Douban, a Chinese films-rating website. Starring popular Chinese-American actress Lucy Liu, the dark-comedy drama has sparked heated discussions on Chinese social media platform Weibo. 

Chinese-American actress Lucy Liu

Liu, who's also the co-director of the show, plays the character of Simone Grove, a socialite whose husband is a homosexual.

The actress has been a part of several blockbuster Hollywood projects before, including "Charlie's Angels," "Shanghai Noon," "Kill Bill," "Ally McBeal." In 1999, she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role in "Ally McBeal." In 2001, she won the MTV Award Best On-Screen Duo for "Charlie's Angels," while in 2004 she was awarded the MTV Award for Best Movie Villain for her performance in "Kill Bill."

Liu, who started her acting career in 1990, is the second Chinese-American actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame after actress Anna May Wong, who was honored with a star in 1960.

During a ceremony honoring her with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in May this year, the actress said: "Sometimes people talk about my mainstream successes as groundbreaking for an Asian, but Asians have been making movies for a long time."
"I was lucky that trailblazers like Anna May Wong and Bruce Lee came before me. If my body of work somehow helped bridge the gap between stereotypical roles, first given to Anna May, and mainstream success today, I am thrilled to have been part of that process."

Chinese-Americans in Hollywood

Liu's success showcases the rising power of Chinese-American actors and other Asian actors in Hollywood. Today these actors are getting more attention than ever before. 

Recently, Adele Lim, a Chinese-American screenwriter behind the 2018 hit "Crazy Rich Asians," stepped away from the film's upcoming sequel citing a massive pay disparity between herself and the movies' other credited writer, Peter Chiarelli.

She said "the standard for how much you're worth is having established quotes from previous movies, which women of color would never have been (hired for). There's no realistic way to achieve true equity that way." 

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Chiarelli stood to make 800,000 U.S. dollars to 1 million U.S. dollars from the two movies, while Lim stood to make only some "110,000 dollars-plus." 

"Crazy Rich Asians," regarded as a pioneering Asian-American movie, grossed 238.5 million U.S. dollars worldwide.

Earlier it was hard to hear the voices against unfair treatment but now things have changed. Lim's decision indicates the rising power of Asian employees in the Tinseltown.