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ASIAN AMERICAN ISSUES
IS HOLLYWOOD UNDERMINING CHOW YUN-FAT?
f it's a sin to make ambidexterous mayhem look stylish and virtuous, Chow Yun-Fat was once eternally damned. Blame it on the camera. Its slow-mo infatuation with his every grin and grimace in John Woo classics like A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Hard Boiled had made him the world's most idolized action star long before his 1996 leap to Hollywood.
Chow's Hollywood projects have undermined rather than enhanced his godlike stature.
Take The Replacement Killers (1996). Its plot was contrived and sterile to a surreal degree. Add to that the look-but-don't-touch romance with leading lady Mira Sorvino and a box office flop was assured.
The Corruptor (1998) did even less for Chow. Not only was he cast as a cop who became corrupted for no good reason, but the action was set in the kind of squalid fleshpot one sees only in the poorest of third-world countries and the Chinatowns of schoolboy fantasies. The coup de grace were jokes casting aspersions on Asian male sexuality. Strike two!
Then came Anna and the King (1999) in which Chow donned embroidered silk buffoonery to play a backward monarch held in thrall by a western schoolteacher. The reworked plot wasn't as ludicrous as the original King and I, but the remake cut Asia's top male superstar to fit the old Hollywood cosmology in which Asians are a quaint race in need of western enlightenment. Strike three!
After that Chow might have been reduced to playing wizened oriental masters dropping metaphysical pearls on young white heroes in training had Taiwanese director Ang Lee not come along to cast him as a legendary swordsman in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). Despite its modest production and promotion budgets, the movie slashed all expectations and fairly flew up to become the year's most profitable release.
No coincidence, some suspect, that the role that saved Chow's chestnuts was conceived and written by an Asian and filmed with an all-Asian cast in the world's most pro-Asian nation -- China.
It isn't so much that Hollywood consciously sets out to undermine Asia's top male superstar, argue some. It's just that its imagination has been stewed for so long in its own racist malarkey that it is incapable of letting an Asian leading man play a truly sexy and heroic role. Look how it turned Jackie Chan into a tool (fool?) of Asian-male-bashing comedy in Rush Hour 2. And Hollywood may yet get its apparent wish to deep-six Chow Yun-Fat. In early 2002 Chow starts shooting Bulletproof Monk, a cult comic adaptation, in which he plays an aging master passing on warrior wisdom to a young white hero.
Is Hollywood undermining Chow Yun-Fat's action-superstar stature?
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WHAT YOU SAY
[This page is closed to new input. --Ed.]
(Updated
Tuesday, Apr 1, 2008, 06:07:34 PM)
What you're saying about Tarantino makes no sense whatsoever. Tarantino has always praised the HK Cinema and has cited John Woo as one of his strong influences in his crime movies like Pulp Fiction. I think you're talking out of your ass because I've never heard Tarantino ever badmouth an Asian American or an Asian, especially anyone in the HK Cinema.
Quentin Tarantino Fan
Monday, February 25, 2002 at 05:22:38 (PST)
Waiting for a John Woo+CYF movie,
You've got your facts mixed up, man.
First of all, don't take anything of what anybody says on the Howard Stern Radio Show as serious as both host and guest are usually just BS-ing and doing schtick for the radio listeners. Quentin Tarantino has a sarcastic sense of humor - don't forget that.
And from what i read, Quentin was the one who encouraged his girlfriend, Mira Sorvino, to do the film because he is a great admirer of Chow Yun Fat, John Woo, and Hong Kong cinema in general. You see some influence of Hong Kong action and that general vibe in his films and his other colleague's, Robert Rodriguez, films. Reservoir Dogs, Desperado, Pulp Fiction. You see subtle nods to his influences if you watch these films closely. You ever wonder why the gangsters in Tarantino's films always wear black suits and black ties -- he got that from A Better Tomorrow. LOL!!!
Quentin Tarantion is currently head of Miramax's foreign film acquisitions department. He is the one who convinced Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein to purchase that film Iron Monkey and release it in the States. And he's been trying to push Hong Kong films to these naive studio execs for years now. He knows what is dope. He knew that Chow Yun Fat, Jet Li, and John Woo were the shit long before Americans got the taste.
So you see, Quentin is a cool cat down with what is fresh and cutting edge. You see his Asian influence as well as his Blaxpoitation influence and doesn't try to hide it. I personally believe he's one of the best directors of our generation.
Valley Chinese Dude
Sunday, February 24, 2002 at 23:24:29 (PST)
I think Chow Yun Fat is such a pretty specimen. I loved him since i first laid eyes on him in a better tommorow. I think he's much prettier in person than in his movie.I know because I had a chance to meet him in Chinatown in Los Angeles.
april luilani
Sunday, February 24, 2002 at 21:36:22 (PST)
From my perspective, the 1-2 punch equation of Director John Woo and actor Chow Yun-Fat in an explosive action movie can uplift the Asian Male image. i believe CYF can make it to superstardom in America...he's tall, handsome, and has enough charisma that most stars should have.
I'm sure there are white men that are jealous of CYF. An example would be Director Quentin Tarantino...Back in 1998 when the "replacement killers" came out(Tarantino was dating Mira Sorvino, who was CYF's co-star in the movie), he was on the Howard Stern show, and refered to Chow yun fat as "This Chinese guy" and completely bashed him. Furthermore Quentin would add comments saying that if you can't speak english, then u shouldn't do an american movie, and he just went on saying CYF made the movie suck. Quentin obviously said this out of jealousy due to the fact that Mira and Chow would always speak together in chinese on the set, and have laughs. Quentin was probably insecure about himself and was afraid a "Chinese guy" would take away his "white woman". Mira majored in chinese at harvard university and can speak it fluently and lived in china for over a year. Evidently, she knew the superstar status of CYF in asia, so she probably chose do a movie with him on his american film debut.
Waiting for a John Woo+CYF movie
Friday, February 22, 2002 at 14:22:06 (PST)
I really enjoy watching Chow Yun-Fat's movies. That is all the justification I need. I was not aware of him before I saw Anna and The King. People are describing Russell Crow as talented and good looking, I suggest that they study Mr Chow much closer then.
Shirley
Friday, February 22, 2002 at 13:58:20 (PST)
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