I Want To Hyakuretsukyaku Them In the Face
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Listen.
And weep.
Part of me finds it odd that the movie will be only about Chun Li and not a more important character like Ryu, but then I remember that Hot Girl = Money, and the fact that heterosexual American men usually get the queasies when presented with half-naked men grunting and groping at each other onscreen, unless American football is involved.
Movies based on video games have a pretty colossal history of sucking (enter: Street Fighter 1994, Mortal Kombat, et al.) and this is easily no exception. But let's suppose for a moment that it won't be a maelstrom of Fail just because it's based on a video game, and turn our attention instead to the movie's individual players.
Wait, someone from American Pie is in this? And someone from the Black Eyed Peas? Wait, and it's directed by the same guy responsible for both Doom and Romeo Must Die?!
Dear lord, someone call Oscar.
Oddly enough, Kristen Kreuk was chosen to play Chun Li, although earlier there had been rumours of a casting that was even worse.
I know three things about Kristin Kreuk:
01 She "acted" in Smallville.
02 She is really beautiful.
03 She is half-Dutch, half-Chinese.
Chun Li is Chinese. Chinese girls do not look Caucasian (the photo is apparently from the Street Fighter movie). It's just a fact.
I don't mean to insinuate that hapas can't identify as Asians because of how "Asian" they may or may not look. Since Kreuk has never made any effort to identify herself as an Asian or half-Asian rather than a Caucasian, let's just assume that superficially she fits the role of Caucasian female, and prefers it that way, in which case her casting is a bit silly since, as aforementioned, Chun Li is Chinese.
Now that's not to say of course that sticking a random Asian girl into that role is right either, because honestly how many Asians - Japanese and otherwise - were completely unfazed by Zhang Ziyi's role in Memoirs Of A Geisha, or Lucy Liu's in Kill Bill? Unfortunately for people casting movies there are, as a general rule, much more noticeable differences between Asians of different ethnicities compared to Caucasians of different European-based backgrounds, not to mention the still-existing hostilities between the various Asian countries, making it easier/more worthwhile (for some) to call out ethnicity differences and perceived cultural snubs.
With the casting of Memoirs Of A Geisha, among others, one can possibly see a bit of the subconscious idea that Asians are all the "same," that no one will notice a difference anyway. And then there are people who castigate people like myself and insist that we're reading too much into it and really need to untwist our knickers because it's not that big a deal.
No matter how "civilised" society pretends to be, there is still Orientalism. That post remains for another day, when I'm feeling a bit more empassioned.
Conclusions:
01 I am not going to see this movie.
02 I suddenly crave rice.
03 I need Street Fighter for PSP.
Labels: film, hollywood, pop culture, street fighter, video games
posted by GMH @ 17:29,
2 Comments:
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At July 30, 2008 9:53 AM,
Rrramone said...
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Great post. You have the capacity to make me laugh and cringe at the same time. Just went to a multicultural seminar on racism recently and agree with you. As a white male, I know how much we have to learn, and I'm impatient that it takes so long for people to learn it.
Please send me a slice of your brain. -
At July 30, 2008 10:52 AM,
GMH said...
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Sometimes it feels like people - white or otherwise - will never learn.
Recently the House of Representatives issued a formal apology to the African-American community, and there are rumours of possible reparations to descendents of black slaves.
Sorry Jesse Jackson, but I won't agree with that until Japan pays me reparations for my descendents forced into slavery during the Japanese occupation of Korea.
