NEW YORK -- Up-and-coming actors will sometimes claim to know a variety of skills to be considered for roles, but Olivia Liang set a boundary early in her career.

She says when she started off in the industry, people would ask why martial arts wasn't on her resume because it was such a typecast for Asians to do martial arts roles.

Liang says she made a promise to herself that she would never learn martial arts until someone pays her to learn martial arts.

Liang kept that promise. She learned martial arts as the lead of The CW's new series, " Kung Fu " -- and she's getting paid for it.

"Kung Fu" is inspired by the 1972 series starring David Carradine.

It stars Liang as Nicky Shen, who while visiting China, joins a monastery where she is taught Shaolin values and martial arts.

When her mentor is killed, she returns home to find her community disrupted by a local gang.

She must use the martial arts skills she learned to protect her neighbourhood and family, and soon discovers she's being targeted by the same assassin who killed her Shaolin mentor.

The series has a mostly Asian American cast with an Asian American showrunner and executive producer, Christina M. Kim.