Asian actors too busy to fret over Hollywood 'white-washing'

I stopped going to see Hollywood movies a decade ago. They are all the same: boring. I haven't seen an engaging character or story in a decade.

gokai - how do you know they are all the same - boring - if you haven't seen a hollywood movie in a decade?

In that time frame there must have literally been 100s of movies released. All the same? Not in my experience.

Kurosawa and Ray, huh? Um...maybe once a year I meet someone in Japan under 40 who has seen a Kurosawa film. I've never met anyone under 40 here who has even heard of Satyajit Ray. This is definitely a touchy issue. Witness the uproar over the (failed) Nina Simone biopic recently. Anyway, I don't see hollywood being that relevant in Japan anymore, unless we're talking about cartoons.

Keanu Reaves as The Buddha. LOL, that's gotta be one of my favourites.

it happens the other way too, there is a lot of criticism for using Asian actors in European roles like in the movie "Full Metal Alchemist", they are supposed to be British, German or so...

The choice for Tilda Swinton as the Ancient one is not related to her being white playing a Tibetan, my guess it was because her androgenic features...

Kurosawa flicks are pretty good if you're in the mood. I kinda like some of Takashi Miike's films. . . they got that weird Tarantino like twist or vice-versa.

Hollywood made Black Rain, which was cool way back then. But watching crap like Tom Cruise in Last Samurai was lame. . . as if a "gaijin" could really fill the Samurai ranks. As if a Real samurai could speak good English too.

"The Ancient One was made into a Celtic woman because of the beauty and the sake of diversity. Iron Fist had to be Caucasian because we wanted to stick true to the comics for authenticity". That's Hollywood for you folks.

As usual some progressive liberals are trying to invent a problem to complain about. As a fan of movies there has never been any consideration for race or gender in movie roles or television. Some of the hottest movies like hunger games or divergent have female leads. I watch tv shows where the leads are both female and Asian. A past example was the battlestar galactica reboot of the old tv series. I was a kid for the original. The new was better, probably the most intriguing characters we're all played by grace park and Asian American who played mtiple characters all with different personalities and my favorite character from the original was recast as a female in the reboot and she was even better. There may be trolls who are fools but I doubt any claims of abject racism and misogyny in movies from the US at least not bad an industry wide problem. They are likely casting actresses who they think fit the role based on talent.

ThePBot

Marvel had absolutely no problem casting an Asian actor for the Asian One. What blocked them was Chinese censorship that prohibit the very mention of "Tibet" in films.

Marvel had absolutely no problem casting an Asian actor for the Asian One. What blocked them was Chinese censorship that prohibit the very mention of "Tibet" in films.

Not even an argument. If they were so scared of not being able to sell to the Chinese market, then they at least could've made the Ancient One an ambiguous "Asian" that's all to common nowadays. But honestly, CELTIC?

Some people claim that American films are getting better because audience expectation is raising but Hollywood movies are exploitative and pure marketing over substance and they seem to be getting worse. As movie production resemble more a commercial venture, the need to attract dollars become imperative. And as such, artistic complexity is out the window and pressured winning formula in. The major difference between America and Europe is that the latter has strong National Broadcasting like BBC in UK and Canal in Europe etc. and that is funded by the State/EU. These institutions tend to fund and develop talent irrespective of commerciality of underlying movies.

It's called ACTING, folks. Micky Rooneys portrayal of a Japanese man in Breakfast At Tiffany's was perfect and couldn't have been topped by using a japanese actor, eg.

Hollywood loves Asian culture, as long as it comes without Asians, because film making is a business, not a social experiment.