Orientalism

While films that are South Korean, Indian, and Chinese have become more popular in Western countries, there are very few Western films with Asian actors/actresses. I can only name a few films where there have been Asian characters in western films, even films where they take place in Asia, such as Indiana Jones, and films where the character should be portrayed as Asian but is not like we saw in Doctor Strange and Ghost in the Shell. (Scarlet Johansen simply wears a black wig to make herself seem Japanese in Ghost in the Shell, which was an originally a Japanese animated film.)

Examples such as these tend to portray the white woman/man as the hero and the Asians as the side characters, even if the film is about kung fu/karate or takes place in an Asian country. Karate Kid is a good example of a white boy who learns karate from a Japanese maintenance man. There is also the new Karate Kid with Jaden Smith, who learns karate in China (even though karate is Japanese). It interests me that there have been three different actors who have starred in the karate kid movies and not one was Asian, given that Karate originated from Japan.

While I have Asian actors in movies, they are solely for special effects/martial arts performance. While I love seeing kung-fu action in movies, the films rarely go beyond the fighting aspect, making the Asian characters seem flat and lifeless. Ip man is a good kung fu movie where the main character (Ip) is more of a round character, even for a kung fu film. My main point is that there should be more Western films that include Asian actors, and not just simply for martial arts purposes.