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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, 06:07:32 PM)
Oh, oh, okay, wait. Hong Kong and Hollywood will never ever be equals. One has lots and lots on industry standards (i.e. insurance issues) the other has lots and lots of quantity. No one, ever, can make a good Jackie Chan movie in the US because Jackie Chan isn't allowed to do dangerous/hard/good stuff.
Back to CYF, hey, the guy is amazing. But he requires amazing roles. Is there room for a Hong Kong personality in a Hollywood movie? Never.
Jet Lee is the same issue: Don't put someone with physical talent in a Hugh-Grant-on-Steroids role.
The solution is to keep the actors close to who they are, they are super stars who make you want to read the subtitles. Work on their level, don't make them come down to Hollywood's.
YoungSoonHan
Adowyoung@hotmail.com
Saturday, May 18, 2002 at 01:03:59 (PDT)
gzus:
Hey give Chow Yan Fat a break. Within a year and a half he aquired the english needed for the making of Anna and The King. I want to see anyone else try going to a foreign country and grasp their language within that time! Chow Yan Fat is a great actor with definite leading role qualities. He actually made women swoon from doing Anna and the King. Critics even haled his performance superior to Jodie Fosters.
pioneer
Friday, May 17, 2002 at 18:18:20 (PDT)
Who are the producers of Hollywood films?
Jews....
Question answered. As long as they are in control and are the main ones writing and producing these movies there will only be stereotype movies for Asian Male and Female roles. Remember many Jewish males marry Asian Females and their views are often views they want to perceive of their wives and girlfriends.
AAAAAh
Thursday, May 16, 2002 at 13:18:43 (PDT)
If people are hoping to see the action star CYF as he was in past years I think they may be dissapointed. He is now in his late forties and from what he recently said he will probably do more dramatic than action rolls after "The Bulletproof Monk." There have also been mentioned two other projects which would not be action rolls. "Men of Destiny" will be one of these films. I hope his fans will let him move on to other things. CYF has always survived in show business going from TV to many comedy and romantic rolls and finally action. He is a wonderful actor who has had a wonderful career. Whatever he does in his career I for one will be buying a ticket to see it.
Lacey
Lacyguymon@aol.com
Tuesday, May 14, 2002 at 06:28:45 (PDT)
Lemme add these guys had their chances as well; none of JetLi/ ChowYunFat's U.S. made movies made real money, and most were losers.
gzus in NYC
Monday, May 13, 2002 at 19:57:34 (PDT)
Is everyone else blind? I don't see how anyone expects this guy to succeed in Hollywood. Bottom line, Chow does not speak fluent english. The words don't roll off his tougue, so he's basically useless except for dry action shoots like the Replacement Killers and ethnic roles like in Anna and the King.
It aint necessarilly cause of discrimination; it's cause you can't put this dude in anything that has a lotta conversation, which is most shoots. As for action stars, Hollywood has an overload of muscle-bound guys and kungfu men.
Same with Jet Li, Jet Li aint got many options either cause he speaks english haltingly, but at least girls think Jet Li is hotter, and he's got much flashier moves.
Jackie Chan, him too, these dumb nuts should have kept their main base in Asia, and maybe take the occassional U.S. role.
Though, clearly the root problem is all those cheap Hong Kongnese/mainland Chinese pirate and they can't make big bucks back home. (Not that I, an ABC, doesnt)
gzus in NYC
Monday, May 13, 2002 at 19:54:36 (PDT)
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