Live-Action Mulan remake.

The Last Airbender was set in a world that's clearly inspired by Asian and Native American cultures, Khan was clearly Indian in the original Star Trek episode, and I'm fairly certain Ra's AL Ghul is meant to be from the Middle East. That didn't stop Hollywood.

What, are you saying we should be worried they will magically change the setting then? Not that this is needed. Last I checked the 47 Ronins were still set in Japan.

edited 31st Mar '15 12:41:35 PM by Heatth

Forty Seven Ronin is a good example of Hollywood not falling into its own pitfalls. Yes, it came up with a bullshit reason to justify Keanu Reeves, and there was the Dutch Harbor, but it still managed to fill every other role with Japanese actors.

I agree that there is reason to be concerned about possible white-washing. However, I do not feel comfortable jumping the gun like this. Wait for "big bad Hollywood" to fuck up before condemning them for doing so.

edited 31st Mar '15 1:28:24 PM by Watchtower

I'm curious if/what they'll do differently with Shan Yu. He works in the animated film as force of nature of sorts, with him and the Huns both literally and metaphorically outside the entire Chinese culture, hence he largely doesn't care about gender, honor, or rank. He simply is and invading China is justified because its there.

An expanded characterization would be interesting, though its tricky because he's such an external threat not directly tied in with Mulan's identity/gender culture arc.

You could portray him as a misogynist leader willing to conquer everything for the sake of glory. That would tie in with Mulan's defense of her gender and her culture.

Then again, this might be too generic.

edited 31st Mar '15 1:40:14 PM by Quag15

I fail to see how casting the star as a non Japanese guy in a distinctly Japanese setting is not "failing for its own pitfalls". Specially when they managed to cast everyone else correctly. It is not like they can claim they didn't have the budget to look for good Asian actors or something.

I just hope they call his people something else than "Huns". It is kinda cringe worthy.

edited 31st Mar '15 1:42:29 PM by Heatth

I'm pretty sure Shan You didn't really care Mulan was a woman. He just saw her as a threat that needed to be destroyed. I think that would be an interesting contrast with how the Chinese see her.

On the race changes I think it tends to be a lose-lose situation because different people have different standards on what is appropriate. Asians themselves seem to be just as picky about getting the race right. There has been backlash against a Japanese actor playing a Chinese character and vice versa.

And at least lately, when dealing with actual historical cultural works (not cultural fantasy like The Last Airbender or Prince of Persia), Hollywood does try to get things somewhat in the right ballpark. We've at least gotten past the days of John Wayne playing Genghis Khan completely seriously.

Not really when we have Christian Bale and Joel Edgerton as Moses and Ramses.

Trying to tiptoe around, but what progress had been made? Or is it still a rumor?

Well that's a whole other issue. There are debates on what Ancient Egyptians and Ancient Hebrews actually looked like, as the entire region has been the product of a lot of migration, assimilation and dispersal. Modern day Egyptians and Jews are not the same thing, there are many people who identify as Jewish but have pale skin and blonde hair.

I'd prefer it if Shan Yu wasn't remade into a Politically Incorrect Villain, because one of the best points about (Disney's version of) Mulan's story is that it wasn't made to be a You Go, Girl! or Positive Discrimination archetype - Mulan does what she does not because she wants to prove women can kick butt, but because she is believes it is her duty to defend and fight for those she honors regardless of the obstacles in her way, and fulfill her duty despite her own doubts. She faces sexism, bigotry and oppressive practices in the path of doing what she feels is right, but the fact that her own arc is so important that it itself drives past the sexist standards of the era on its own is actually pretty important.

Or in short, Shan Yu primarily needs to be an enemy of China, because Mulan is doing what she does for China's sake, not her own. Even making Shan Yu's enmity to Mulan personal in any way (like, say, if they made Shan Yu the guy who crippled her father or something) would risk losing that: and honestly, Mulan one of Disney's most purely heroic characters because of it. I'd hate it if the writers changed the plot because they (rather than the characters in the movie itself) thought Mulan had something to prove because she was a woman.

Besides, they don't need to make a point of Shan Yu being exaggeratedly sexist if the world around Mulan is already like that.

Think like how Agent Carter does it - the world Peggy is in is sexist and suppressive, and that serves to be the major obstacle that features in getting her arc done. Big Bads of the season aren't particularly sexist in comparison, because Carter is defending the world (or at least America) from evil, not herself or her own values - she is just as influential a hero as the rest of them, and the show shows this by having her fight not a threat that isn't female-specific in any way, but one that is entirely universal and as much antagonistic to the people she cares about as they are to herself.

edited 31st Mar '15 2:10:09 PM by KnownUnknown

If I recall, she's doing it for her father's sake. She didn't know anything about the Huns or the threat they posed beyond they were making the army conscript her weak and elderly father. Keeping him out of the fight by posing as his non-existent son was her whole purpose for joining.

Did it for 12 years before quietly retiring and no one she fought alongside learning the truth till after she left the army.

edited 31st Mar '15 2:50:33 PM by GethKnight

Which is entirely the fault of whoever was in charge of the casting.

How hard could it possibly be to find to Japanese actor/actress to play a Japanese character or a Chinese actor/actress to play a Chinese character? That kind of miscasting is just lazy.

edited 31st Mar '15 3:07:29 PM by PhysicalStamina

I'm talking actual Asian movies, not just Hollywood. Japanese actor Ken Watanabe was originally going to be in the John Woo historical film Red Cliffs before being replaced over complaints of him portraying a famous Chinese figure. Between that and complaints of Indonesian actress Tania Gunadi portraying a ninja in car commercials and perpetuating Japanese stereotypes, I just find the backlash on not getting the exact right ethnicity to play a character doing more harm than good. It's not about being lazy, it's about finding the right actor for the part. Ethnicity has something to do with that, but casting, say, a Korean actor who auditioned better than a Chinese actor will have a better impact on the movie.

Just because you don't care for the difference between a Korean and a Chinese, doesn't mean no one cares. I remember being annoyed when a light skinned Mexican was cast to play a dark skinned Brazilian in Days of Future Past, and even more annoyed when people claimed it didn't matter since he was still a Latin American poc.

edited 31st Mar '15 4:17:50 PM by Heatth

And isn't it so convenient that the person with the "best audition" is so often a white guy.

Ummm...about Khan...they did cast a Mexican as an Indian Sikh...and still had to brown him up. Also, they had already cast a Puerto Rican (Benicio del Toro) to again play an Indian in Into Darkness, before he dropped out.

Also, Cumberbatch rocked the part IMO. I also always assumed that he donned a facial disguise when he was taken from his ship.

Besides, considering we're post 9/11 here, it might not have been the bets idea to have Khan, who commits acts of terror in Into Darkness, depicted as...dark-skinned.

edited 31st Mar '15 5:03:12 PM by Sisi

I never knew Khan was supposed to be Indian until I saw people talking about it online.

How hard could it possibly be to find to Japanese actor/actress to play a Japanese character or a Chinese actor/actress to play a Chinese character? That kind of miscasting is just lazy.

I don't entirely understand why this is problematic (other than the fraught history between Japan and China). Wolverine, an iconic Canadian character, is played by an Australian. So is an iconic French character, Jean Valjean in Les Miserables (by the same Australian!). Brits play Americans, Americans play Brits. When a character is white, we act as though nationality doesn't matter for the casting.

I understand that whitewashing is a serious problem, because 1) there are few enough big acting opportunities for non-white actors already, and whitewashing makes this worse and 2) lack of representation means people who aren't white rarely get to see people who look like them in the roles of protagonists. And 3) whitewashing is especially egregious in historical films for accuracy reasons.

But I don't really get what's so problematic - again, apart from present-day political tensions and historical baggage - about casting a Korean as a Chinese character, or a Chinese person as a Japanese character. Any more so than, say, casting Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean.

I'm open to being corrected on this point.

edited 31st Mar '15 5:15:29 PM by Galadriel

I think that argument falls apart when Khan is already being made into an Osama Bin Laden stand in for a 9/11 truther plot. Like if you don't want to associate the character with a modern day comparison, don't make it a plot that links him to a modern day comparison. If you don't want to "accidentally" associate terrorism with Middle Eastern/ South Asian people, don't use an Indian character at all.

edited 31st Mar '15 5:16:23 PM by SomeSortOfTroper

Annie made nearly 135 million dollars on a budget of 65 million dollars. I know, that's more than I was expecting as well. Hardly a bomb unless the marketing went way over the top and ate all the profits.

He could have just be John Harrison, and nobody would have been the wiser.

We seem to have skipped Ariel, Jasmine and Pocahontas in live-action adaptations of the Disney Princess line here.