![]() "As an ethnic actor, you have to work a million times harder than anyone else just to get your foot in the door," says Kal Penn in a phone conversation. I was being too serious." Something to prove I thought they were mindless, but they were not meant to be serious. Then she was offered plenty of "cartoonish chop-chop action movies." "I turned those down," Chen says by phone. "I'm working, but not much in Hollywood," says Chen, though she sees more roles around than when she started 25 years ago. "I'm sure the producers were more interested in making a film about cheating Las Vegas rather than the subtleties of the Asian American experience."īut where does that leave Asian American actors? "Films are constructed to make money," Gong says by phone. Stephen Gong, executive director of the Center for Asian American Media, says stories like "21" don't really surprise him. "But would anyone dare do that with Amos and Andy?" "Sure it's satire, that's the excuse," says Dong. "There are a limited number of Asian roles and plenty of hungry actors," says Arthur Dong, director of the new documentary "Hollywood Chinese." "When a non-Asian gets an Asian role, it's a slap in the face." And when Nicolas Cage parodies Fu Manchu in "Grindhouse" in 2007, it stings even more. A two-way street?īut shouldn't colorblindness cut both ways? If Asian Americans want to play Hamlet ( Joan Chen's role in "Twin Peaks" was written for an Italian), shouldn't Sturgess have a shot at "21"? "This is pretty outrageous, and just as questionable as having Brian Dennehy play Kublai Khan in (Hallmark's) recent ' Marco Polo' movie," writes Alvin on the Hypen Magazine blog. If you want the movie made, we have to re-cast the leads.' " You can just imagine the studio meeting: 'Asian won't sell. ![]() "Are you kidding me? A movie about math, MIT and gambling, and the lead was made white? Have you ever seen the pai gow tables in Vegas?" exclaims Manish on the blog Ultrabrown. Not everyone buys the colorblind "it's about the best actor for the role" argument. He adds that as a consultant to "21," Ma himself "has vigorously supported the producers' casting choices." ![]() "They are prominently featured in the motion picture and they also appear in the trailers, on the posters, billboards," Elzer says in an e-mail. He points out that there are two Asian Americans in the five-member ensemble. "While '21' is inspired by a true story, the film is fictionalized," stresses Steve Elzer, Sony's senior vice president for media relations. That story inspired the 1989 movie "True Believer." But who got to play the heroic crusader? James Woods. Lee wrote more than 120 articles that helped free a young Korean American wrongly accused of a gangland murder. In the 1970s, pioneering Korean journalist K.W. "It was a lost opportunity, especially given the lack of strong Asian roles." More of the same?įor MANAA, it was a sense of deja vu. ![]() "But '21' was based on a true story involving a number of Asian Americans," says Lee by phone. ![]() Asian hits like "The Ring" and "Infernal Affairs" are routinely Americanized. As soon as word got around of the switcheroo, MANAA contacted Sony. Phil Lee, president of Media Action Network for Asian Americans, thinks so. ![]()
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