When Cultures Collide

[kimpossible]

Got a question for the blasians. How are movies featuring Afro-American and Asian cultures (or black and Asian stars in them) for you? I ask because most movies I've seen with whites and Asians either piss me off or are embarrassingly stupid. Or both I guess. Particularly after the rash of 80s and 90s goofy martial arts movies featuring the Great White Savior protagonist, I just usually groan when I hear a movie with this premise.

The trend for the 2000s seems to be black/Asian martial arts movies. What do you guys think? What are your impressions and thoughts? What is being done right? What is missing that you would like to see?

[YuheiCarreau]

I want to know who the hell saw Jet Li and DMX together in Romeo Must Die and thought, "Hey! A guy who can barely speak English and a rapper who can't act to save his life... There's a movie in there somewhere!"

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by YuheiCarreau@Mar 16 2003, 09:07 PM
I want to know who the hell saw Jet Li and DMX together in Romeo Must Die and thought, "Hey! A guy who can barely speak English and a rapper who can't act to save his life... There's a movie in there somewhere!"
hey, you're talking about hollywood. what motivates a film to be made is not the quality of the film. it's about how likely people would pay money to see it. jet li and dmx happen to be popular and people would pay money to see them.

plan out the marketting, and then find a script.

[deez nuts]

it all started with the rap group the wutang clan! :D

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by Chasiubao_Boy@Mar 16 2003, 10:37 PM
it all started with the rap group the wutang clan! :D
no man! it started way back in the 70s when bruce lee movies and blaxploitation collided!

[deez nuts]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Mar 16 2003, 10:38 PM
no man! it started way back in the 70s when bruce lee movies and blaxploitation collided!
curses i was just a fetus or a wee lad in taiwan! i missed out!

[Hiroshi2]

I haven't seen anything particuarly offensive. I thought the two Rush Hour movies were kinda funny, but quite frankly haven't seen too many martial arts movies featuring blacks (unless you're talking about some Wesley Snipes stuff, which I liked). Can't say that I saw anything really offensive.

I thought Romeo Must Die was interesting (having Jet Li and Aailyah together).

Would I like to see more movies starring black and asian actors and seeing the cultures interact. Actually, yes. The only thing being that it's always chinese culture. So i can't really relate to it, know what I mean? ;)

[SunWuKong]

Originally posted by Hiroshi2@Mar 16 2003, 10:44 PM
The only thing being that it's always chinese culture. So i can't really relate to it, know what I mean? ;)
Brother (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0222851)

excellent film.

[Hiroshi2]

Originally posted by SunWuKung@Mar 16 2003, 09:51 PM
Brother (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0222851)

excellent film.
Hmm, haven't seen it, but the name "Beat" Takeshi sounds very familar......... ;)


Must say, it looks interesting though. Have to check it out if I can.

[Napoleon Chynamite]

Originally posted by Hiroshi2@Mar 16 2003, 07:44 PM
The only thing being that it's always chinese culture. So i can't really relate to it, know what I mean? ;)
I don't think there was much to relate to in the first place even for Chinese people in terms of Rush Hour or Romeo Must Die. Kung fu fight scenes and massage parlours don't really count... :unsure: Oh look, Jet Li is speaking a few words of Mandarin! woohoo!! :D Most of the so-called culture is stereotypical Asian culture in general anyways (i.e. cue exotic music and emphasis on warrior-like conduct, calm stoic martial artist, etc etc).

To go a little off subject, it's not like people complain b/c Jet Li and Jackie Chan don't expand beyond the kung fu genre and break the so-called stereotype(actually we kinda want them to stay there, seeing as how that is what they do best, and it was what they did best in Asia too), it's the fact that there aren't any other (or extremely few) Asian stars in the other aspects of Hollywood cinema such as drama, romance, thriller, suspense, etc, which me personally I don't really care. The only Hollywood I watch is action anyways.

[kimpossible]

Originally posted by Hiroshi2@Mar 16 2003, 07:44 PM
I haven't seen anything particuarly offensive. I thought the two Rush Hour movies were kinda funny, but quite frankly haven't seen too many martial arts movies featuring blacks (unless you're talking about some Wesley Snipes stuff, which I liked). Can't say that I saw anything really offensive.

I thought Romeo Must Die was interesting (having Jet Li and Aailyah together).

Would I like to see more movies starring black and asian actors and seeing the cultures interact. Actually, yes. The only thing being that it's always chinese culture. So i can't really relate to it, know what I mean? ;)
In your opinion, how would you describe the differences between Asian/black movies and white/black movies? Are the interactions between the characters different? The relationships? Is power more equal?

[Hiroshi2]

Originally posted by Hello_Hapa@Mar 17 2003, 09:23 PM
Originally posted by Hiroshi2@Mar 16 2003, 07:44 PM
I haven't seen anything particuarly offensive. I thought the two Rush Hour movies were kinda funny, but quite frankly haven't seen too many martial arts movies featuring blacks (unless you're talking about some Wesley Snipes stuff, which I liked). Can't say that I saw anything really offensive.

I thought Romeo Must Die was interesting (having Jet Li and Aailyah together).

Would I like to see more movies starring black and asian actors and seeing the cultures interact. Actually, yes. The only thing being that it's always chinese culture. So i can't really relate to it, know what I mean?  ;)
In your opinion, how would you describe the differences between Asian/black movies and white/black movies? Are the interactions between the characters different? The relationships? Is power more equal?
Haven't seen too many black/asian movies. The two Rush Hour movies, and Romeo Must Die. That's all I can remember seeing right now. But based on that, and the numerous white guy/black guy movies I've seen, I'd actually say there's a lot in common. Like the scene from the first Rush Hour where Chris Tucker says, "Don't ever touch a black man's radio, boy!!!" I could definitely picturing some white cop instead of Jackie Chan in the seat next to him when he said that. I think basically they are simply running a variation on a theme: make the black guy look cool, sexy, tough, etc. while the white (or asian) guy is clueless and envious of the black guy at first and then maybe learns a few things from him. With an asian, of course, it's always a fobby asian so they can make jokes about his accent, etc.

Oh yeah, thought it was a bit interesting in the second RH how Chris Tucker said, "there's always a rich white man involved with this type of thing" or something like that. Almost made me think they wanted to you see it as black guy teams up with asian guy to get the white guy (which would've been interesting). Anyway, I'm probably reading way too far into that one part.

And Romeo Must Die was different mostly because instead of going the expected route of black man/ asian woman, they flipped it around. Made it worth watching a few more minutes.

So basically, I don't see too much difference besides the obvious cultural stuff. *shrugs*