ABC Family picks up "Samurai Girl"

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - ABC Family has picked up "Samurai Girl," which the cable network plans to air as a "major programming event" consisting of three two-hour episodes.

"Samurai," from ABC Studios, is set to start production in the spring in Vancouver and is slated to air over one weekend in August 2008.

"Samurai," based on a series of popular young-adult novels, centers on a 19-year-old Japanese girl named Heaven (Jamie Chung) who discovers that the wealthy businessman who adopted her as an infant is really the head of the Yakuza (the Japanese mafia) and had her beloved brother brutally murdered. She breaks from her family and begins training to become a samurai, and with the help of a group of new American friends, sets out to take down her father's evil empire.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter