Historical roles : most important factor?

[Ranger REG]

Funnily enough, just following polls in places like Japan Today, the Japan haven't had a huge problem with Zhang Ziyi. It's the Chinese having a problem with a Chinese woman playing a Japanese geisha.

??? ???

Sooo.... The Japanese have a problem with Michelle Yeoh?

 

[Umbran]

It is an actor's (or actress') job to act, to portray something he or she is not. So long as he can do that well and convincingly, I'm not too particular about the rest.

 

[frankthedm]

Funnily enough, just following polls in places like Japan Today, the Japan haven't had a huge problem with Zhang Ziyi. It's the Chinese having a problem with a Chinese woman playing a Japanese geisha.

Japan news today is not a good judge of japanese culture. It gives some inroads to understanding it, like how liberal minded japanese women are finding like minded men rare and other darkly amusing things, like how often blind eyes are turned tocrimes against humanity. The box office and home DVD sales will be far more telling.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

Hadouken!

Oh, wait... just because the Japanese actually make up an ethnic majority in Hawaii these days...

Or is that just an urban myth?

dunno, but when my sis-in-law (who was born in hawaii) ordered a new copy of her birth certificate, it came listing both parents' ethnicities as japanese, leading us to believe that that is now the default in the system - take that as a sign if you will.

 

[Black Omega]

??? ???

Sooo.... The Japanese have a problem with Michelle Yeoh?

Not that I'm aware of...

 

[fusangite]

But it got me thinking. In portraying a historical figure (or a fictional one with a very strongly established physical apearance) is physical similarity as or more important than other factors? Star power, acting ability, personal dedication to the project.... What's most important?

Acting ability, particularly, the capacity to convey alienness.

 

[Desdichado]

Acting ability, particularly, the capacity to convey alienness.

I think most movie-makers would concede that the point of a movie is to connect on a human level in some form with the audience. I can't imagine that the capacity to convey alienness is anything other than a turn-off for them, not something that they look for.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

I think most movie-makers would concede that the point of a movie is to connect on a human level in some form with the audience. I can't imagine that the capacity to convey alienness is anything other than a turn-off for them, not something that they look for.

I interpreted "alienness" in this case to mean portraying a person very different from oneself (as opposed the the habit many "name actors" have of playing themselves in whatever role) but I may have been generously reading into it...

 

[TheAuldGrump]

Other ethnically dubious characters in films

1) Kevin Costner as Robin Hood
2) Sean Connery (Scottish) playing an Egyptian pretending to be Spanish, not to mention Christopher Lambert (French) playing a Scot pretending to be American
3) Mel Gibson playing William Wallace (a Norman) as if he were a Gael
4) The Rock ('cause we're talking about him) as the Scorpion King (okay, that's not really considered historical, but he's certainly neither Akkadian nor Egyptian)
5) Zhang Ziyi (again) as a Manchu in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

To tell the truth, I'm not bothered unless the film's bad as well, then it starts to grate.

*Cough* You are forgetting one of the great miscastings ever - John Wayne as Ghengis Kahn! (The Conqueror

The Auld Grump - A film that may have caused John Wayne's death by cancer many years later.

 

[Ranger REG]

Its just the character was nearly always played by a female. Its sort of a tradition.

In Broadway, yeah.

Robin William portrayed Peter Pan who left Neverland, got married, got old, got kids, and came back.

IIRC, last Winter we had a Peter Pan movie and a kid was cast in the title role.