Movies in General

J

jackliu

Banned Idiot
kwaigonegin said:
I agree with what you say however I think there is more to it than just audience homogeneity...what I mean by that is Hollywood movies are very well received overseas but the target audience are certainly not white or Americans. Could it be part of the 'colonial' mentality? I think so but then again I'm no social scientist.

Another part could be due to 'attractiveness'.. I think it is safe to assume that there many times more Asian men and women who are more partial to the likes of Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie etc than say 'white' American men and women who thinks the same for the likes of Jackie Chan, Jet Li or Lucy Liu etc.
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Well, it also have to do with the fact that Hollywood is the only one that can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a movies. That means the world's best technology are at their disposal, and so are some of the world's top directors, script writers etc...

Also the fact that American culture itself is extremely popular in the world, and Hollywood is a important expression of American culture.

Did you know that by quantity wise, India is the nation that makes the most amount of movies per year? But their production quality, script writing does not even come close.

This is something China need to work on, they may have very powerful economic influence already, but their cultural influence sucks very badly right now. I would say, even Korean and Japanese culture by itself is more influential than Chinese cultures worldwide.
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
The fact is Hollywood is going to be reluctant to give a good role, regardless if it's a good guy or bad guy, to an Asian. Those roles are reserved for establishment actors. Think about the logic. It's something like only 2% of members in the screen actors guild that actually work enough in acting to make a living from it. By nature they're not going to promote Asian roles because that takes away acting opportunities for others if Asians can only play them. Now think about that for good roles. They don't want the American public or any public they make money from liking Asian characters with depth because then they don't get to play them because they're not Asian. That's why actors hate reality television because they take away opportunities for shows in their place where they can act. Anyone in the US knows about the late-night talk show wars. When NBC television put Jay Leno's talk show on during prime time five days a week normally reserved for scripted TV where actors act, actors hated him for it. Because that failed Leno is now out of prime time and back in late night but actors still hate him when he used to be their darling. Even today he doesn't get that many A-list actors to come on his show like he use to because there's some unofficial boycott of him. The uncoming Iron Man sequel has a different twist. They have Ben Kingsley playing the Mandarin, arch enemy of Tony Stark in the movie. In the comics the Mandarin is Chinese. But in this situation I think they have Ben Kingsley playing the Mandarin because they want this movie shown in China because Beijing doesn't like movies where Chinese are being portrayed as the bad guy and thus wouldn't allow it to be shown in China.
 
J

jackliu

Banned Idiot
AssassinsMace said:
The fact is Hollywood is going to be reluctant to give a good role, regardless if it's a good guy or bad guy, to an Asian. Those roles are reserved for establishment actors. Think about the logic. It's something like only 2% of members in the screen actors guild that actually work enough in acting to make a living from it. By nature they're not going to promote Asian roles because that takes away acting opportunities for others if Asians can only play them. Now think about that for good roles. They don't want the American public or any public they make money from liking Asian characters with depth because then they don't get to play them because they're not Asian. That's why actors hate reality television because they take away opportunities for shows in their place where they can act. Anyone in the US knows about the late-night talk show wars. When NBC television put Jay Leno's talk show on during prime time five days a week normally reserved for scripted TV where actors act, actors hated him for it. Because that failed Leno is now out of prime time and back in late night but actors still hate him when he used to be their darling. Even today he doesn't get that many A-list actors to come on his show like he use to because there's some unofficial boycott of him. The uncoming Iron Man sequel has a different twist. They have Ben Kingsley playing the Mandarin, arch enemy of Tony Stark in the movie. In the comics the Mandarin is Chinese. But in this situation I think they have Ben Kingsley playing the Mandarin because they want this movie shown in China because Beijing doesn't like movies where Chinese are being portrayed as the bad guy and thus wouldn't allow it to be shown in China.
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Chinese market right now is a HUGE factor in Hollywood's decision. This go back to the new Red Dawn movie, the original bad guy is China, they even film the movie with PLA uniform. Then later in post production they decide to use CGI to change all the Chinese marking to North Korean markings.

So I think right now there is 2 force that are pushing the US public, one force sees China as the next threat to US absolute supremacy and they want to do whatever it takes to stop them, that means demonize them to the American people like they did with Soviet Union. Then there is the other force that have their hand in the cookie jar from doing business with China, they may not care for whatever people think of China, but they sure don't want things to change, so they will lobby to not let it go overboard, but they are not doing it out of their heart, they are doing this for their pocket.

This is a very interesting tug of war, we'll see within the next decade which side will win.
 
P

paintgun

Senior Member
Mandarin is half Chinese, and Kingsley is half Indian

This has more to do with fans expectation, and Kingsley himself is an excellent actor with a good reputation
It's hard to find a Chinese descend actor in the US for this role
Pick a young(new) actor with no pedigree, you'll risk the movie, or should they ask James Hong to do Mandarin? that would be hilarious, Chow Yun Fat? even more hilarious

Kingsley is perfect for this, and i like the early screen shot of his Mandarin look
 
AssassinsMace

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
Well I've already read an article somewhere recently stating that Disney which owns Marvel wants to reimagine the Mandarin. In other words the Mandarin of old was based on stereotypes and thus they don't want to cause controversy. It's a double-edged sword because I'm reading people noting how they're giving a white a role for a Chinese again. Given they're going to get criticized anyway they're going to pick not offending Beijing so the movie gets shown in China.
 
P

paintgun

Senior Member
people who fail to notice that Mandarin is a stereotypical 60's comic book villain deserve some criticism themselves

blind nationalism smack at the face

and i can not imagine Beijing meddling itself in a comic book superhero affair.
yes it's Hollywood, and yes sometimes it can get too patriotic or propaganda-ish, but it's not some documentary denouncing an important issue or what not.

the Red Dawn is an over reaction by the producers, and they should have known that they have no chance in China whether they made the bad guys Chinese, Koreans, or Martians.

---------------------

Beijing's clasp on foreign movies is about trade and industry protection, also a feeble attempt at fending off foreign culture invasion. If people can't watch it on the theatre they can always find the bootleg or download it.
 
A

airsuperiority

Captain
jackliu said:
Well, it also have to do with the fact that Hollywood is the only one that can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a movies. That means the world's best technology are at their disposal, and so are some of the world's top directors, script writers etc...

Also the fact that American culture itself is extremely popular in the world, and Hollywood is a important expression of American culture.

Did you know that by quantity wise, India is the nation that makes the most amount of movies per year? But their production quality, script writing does not even come close.

This is something China need to work on, they may have very powerful economic influence already, but their cultural influence sucks very badly right now. I would say, even Korean and Japanese culture by itself is more influential than Chinese cultures worldwide.
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Yes that's true, and these, which we call culture (comics, anime, drama, tv shows, music, grammy's, mtv, ads, mass media, books, contemporary enjoyment, plays, dance) are all part of soft power, and these are where the Koreans and the Japanese excelled. This guy can tell you how much it means
[video=youtube;9bZkp7q19f0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0[/video]

And as for the Mandarin thing, an alternative that can work is if you produce a "good guys" party that's also Chinese that works with the protagonists, and also needed to be in substantial quality/quantity, in order to balance things. So for example:

Mandarin vs Iron Man = evil China vs good US.
Mandarin vs Iron Man + small party of Chinese or some Chinese with minor roles being led by Iron Man = even worse because now Iron Man, representing US, will be seen to be leading China.
Mandarin + Chinese government vs Iron Man + small party of Chinese/small roles/major Chinese protagonist = evil China vs good US+ Chinese rebels, which is also bad image
Mandarin vs Iron Man + another major Chinese protagonist = more balanced
Mandarin vs Iron Man + another major Chinese protagonist + Chinese government = rogue evil guy vs good US+China as friends = good
 
ABC78

ABC78

Junior Member
jackliu said:
Well, it also have to do with the fact that Hollywood is the only one that can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a movies. That means the world's best technology are at their disposal, and so are some of the world's top directors, script writers etc...

Also the fact that American culture itself is extremely popular in the world, and Hollywood is a important expression of American culture.

Did you know that by quantity wise, India is the nation that makes the most amount of movies per year? But their production quality, script writing does not even come close.

This is something China need to work on, they may have very powerful economic influence already, but their cultural influence sucks very badly right now. I would say, even Korean and Japanese culture by itself is more influential than Chinese cultures worldwide.[/QUOTE

Korean, Japanese and Indian entertainment and culture are only viewed more favorably than Chinese entertainment and culture in the west because they are the good Asians.

Anime only succeeds in the west because most the lead characters are drawn to look like white people.
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P

paintgun

Senior Member
ABC78 said:
Korean, Japanese and Indian entertainment and culture are only viewed more favorably than Chinese entertainment and culture in the west because they are the good Asians.

Anime only succeeds in the west because most the lead characters are drawn to look like white people.
Click to expand...

Japanese and Korean pop culture are appreciated in the west because they produce good stuffs
 
ABC78

ABC78

Junior Member
Hollywood's glass celling is a major obstical. Any Asian person that even breaks through will never support more progressive themed projects because it will cost them their job or hurt their career. Asians that are successful in Hollywood only make stuff that strokes the white ego and sense of superiority.

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