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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, 06:07:31 PM)
Definitely! It is so sad that we have so many talented Asian artists (actors) and they are being exploited with kung fu shit. The sad thing is that most of these less talented (acting) people like Jackie Chan and Jet Li are willing to cater to the stereotypes of Asian chop-chop movies. Without the the Kung Fu, can these guys act. I don't think so. Furthermore, Asian American actors are suffering as a result of this. Like it or not, these people are not Asian Americans.
As for Chow Yun Fat, he is a dramatic actor. He has done so many TV series and tons of movies. As soon as he made it into the Hollywood system, they want to him to do action movies. With the exception of Anna and the King, which he is decent, perhaps better than Jodie Foster. Unfortunately, the attention was shifted to her and her sky-high salary.
Well, I am so glad Gong Li not to cross over. Otherwise she'll play whores and girlfriends who steal married white men forever. Remember Joan Chen, well -- so much for that.
Watch out Zhang Ziyi!
Tony
Monday, May 27, 2002 at 23:17:18 (PDT)
WF's thoughts,
If you want to know why some Asians didn't like Anna and the King, then you should know that it and all its incarnations of the story including the musical were banned in Thailand. And that there are protest websites out there, and that the Thai government even banned Hollywood from shooting in Thailand, they had to go to Vietnam or Malasyia or somewhere to shoot "on location".
Why the protest you ask?
The original book that started the whole "franchise" was semifictional; meaning many of the things in the movie, musical, whatever did not happen. Hollywood chose to represent it as a true story. Many Thais thought the story was an insult to the royal family and especially to the King in question because he managed to keep Thailand from being colonized while all its neigbhors are European "protectorates". Yes, I can see how history savvy Asians would protest to a Colonial era film like that, especially if their country were colonized.
Not to mention Thais thought Chow Yun Fat spoke terrible Thai.
Movie savvy
Monday, May 27, 2002 at 09:17:36 (PDT)
I absolutely loved "Anna and the King". Maybe some of you didn't, because it was set in the Colonialist era, but I thought Chow Yun Fat's performance was nothing short of magnificent. His presence absolutely convinced me that he was royalty. It was a role of true depth, a man torn between love of his country and people, and love of a white woman that he can never have. Also about the struggle in his soul over the British attempting to take over the country. I really thought he deserved the Oscar.
WF's thoughts
Wednesday, May 22, 2002 at 08:52:30 (PDT)
"anyhow, he didn't play either a monk or a kungfu master in the corrupter, anna and the king, or the replacement killers--in nearly half of his hollywood films."
yeah right like playing the role of an
asian dictator or corrupt cop is
a real step up. get a clue.
"it's a big deal for h.k. actors to break into hollywood. it's kinda like their dream."
that might be true but all these dim-witted hk'ers care about is the money they can make off hollywood regardless of the the consequences to their fellow asians. what can you expect from hyper-capitalist hong kong where money is like a god to these people.
people should protest and boycott chow yun-fat's hollywood films. at least til a decent one comes along but i wouldn't be holding my breath.
abbercrapper
Tuesday, May 21, 2002 at 13:28:14 (PDT)
v. dogg,
Neither could Van Dam and Arnold. But they had pretty sucessful careers.
AC Dropout
Monday, May 20, 2002 at 06:17:55 (PDT)
i think it's because they can't speak english fluently.
v. dogg
Saturday, May 18, 2002 at 15:04:35 (PDT)
Join the Black American and other dark skinned cultures in North America. Its the same old song and dance "if it ain't white it ain't right" The asian communinty and all other non-whites would do good to take a page from the Black (Afro-Centric) experience and realize that we are all in the same boat.
How many great Black Actors both men and woman have gone without meaningful roles always to be cast aside as a clown or comedic role. How many romantic leads have been men of color in Hollywood? How many times has the non-white been relegaded to the side while the whites get all of the spoils.....
All I can say is the Asian community better wake up and do it quick...
angry but wise
inw44@yahoo.com
Saturday, May 18, 2002 at 12:09:09 (PDT)
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