I have not seen the movie yet, so I cannot say. But news reports and NYTimes review say: (so why was Taipei mayor so full of praise for a movie that might have been racist towards Asians and Taiwanese in particular? Did he even see the movie? If anyone has seen it, please tell me I am wrong and that is not racist at all and the casting of the Korean actor was no problem at all, just as Germans can play Frenchmen in movies and Italians can play Spaniards, so why can’t a Korean pass for a Taiwanese gangster in a bit of Hollywood summer fluff/fun?
NYT review: last grafs: ''This is, after all, a movie that, stripped of its gimmick, comes down to a white woman being chased by hordes of Asian men. Mr. Besson’s thoughtlessness in this regard reaches an early nadir when Lucy shoots a Taiwanese man, nominally because he doesn’t speak English — a death that’s played for laughs. The scene’s vulgarity recalls Indiana Jones’s jokily shooting a sword-wielding Arab in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” proving yet again that what looks new in Mr. Besson’s work is invariably old.
In an interview with local Taipei Chinese-speaking press the other day, Luc Besson said he cast South Korean actor Choi Min-sik instead of a Taiwanese actor as the villain — Mr Jang — because Choi was the better choice, saying that Taiwanese actors still have “a little work to do” to reach Choi’s level of performance, the director said. *** QUESTION: if Besson had taken the time for auditions, he could have found a good actor in Taiwan to play the role of a Taiwanese character in the movie, no? Or is this the Western/Hollywood view of things: all Asians look alike meme and who cares? Just as they cast Chinese actresses to play Japanese geishas in the movie MEMORIES OF A GEISHA a few years ago, which had Japanese fans up in anger over the slight.
It opens today, and I won’t see it until this weekend at the earliest, but I don’t expect it to be overtly racist. Americans are amazingly adept at finding racialism where you’d least expect it. But as I see it, if the Taiwanese themselves aren’t concerned, who are we (i.e., Americans) to get all fussy about it?
COMMENT SAYS ‘’'what is even worse is this scene: ‘’
white woman literally kills an asian guy because he can’t speak english. LITERALLY. how should i feel as an asian woman? this guy could be so many other people i know in real life who can’t speak english. i could imagine it be my father or other people i know. but no, it’s okay, because she’s a woman. because it looks badass.
she isn’t even in the USA or any other english- speaking state. bUt nO OF COURSE YOU ALL HAVE TO SPEAK ENGLISH. not everything revolves about you. SHE’S the one who is in a foreign country, she should be the one adapting to it and not the other way round. i dont go to USA and shoot people because they can’t speak vietnamese.
commenter says ‘‘after hearing about it through the submission to @angryasiangirlsunited, i checked out the trailer of Lucy and am even more disgusted. and so not surprised. whiteness is getting too old.’’
‘‘the upcoming movie lucy will feature the age-old racist narrative of pure white woman (scarlet johansson) being violated by scary, brown men. and the new white feminist trope of women gaining their power by violently eliminating brown men. who needs the white male savior when we now have white female saviors, taking it into their own hands to save their whiteness from all that non-whiteness. so radical.’’
I call BS. I am very much against racism and like to think I’m pretty sensitive to picking up on it, but trying to paint Taiwanese people as “scary brown men” is the lamest stretch of the imagination.
I thought the stereotype of East Asians is geeky overachievers who are good at math and terrible at social skills… When did the stereotype of violent and scary Taiwanese people show up? First I’ve heard of it.
And when did Taiwanese people ever become brown? They’re just fishing for things to get angry about. Write it off as some nuts on the Internet.
Also it’s clear none of these people have actually watched the movie. They’re commenting on the trailer. I’ll come back here after I’ve seen it.
I saw the movie near a month ago. I think its an entertaining film. I don’t think the koreans were playing TAiwanese gangsters as they spoke KOREAN.
To someone who didn’t read anything about the movie beforehand, it looked like a bunch of KOREAN gangsters (who had ties to Taiwanese gangsters) were booked up in a fancy hotel in Taipei. The baddies were KOREAN and they spoke KOREAN. So there is no pretense they were Taiwanese. I guess its ok to have Korean baddies staying at a Taipei hotel be the baddies isnt it?
There was a scene where Lucy was locked up by Taiwanese henchmen (they were SPEAKING TAIWANESE and that is how we knew they were Taiwanese). IF she killed one of the Taiwanese baddies partly because he didn’t speak english, it was not all because he didn’t speak english, it was because he was a baddie.
The movie was well done. And it had a lot of scenes in Taiwan so I see it as a plus for Taiwan.
Go see it, I bet it gets pretty big crowds on the rock.
The theatre was pretty full over here.
I makes sense that the baddies were Korean staying in a Taiwan hotel. Because TW gangsters wouldnt be staying in a hotel i suppose.
You bet correctly. I went to see a movie today (not Lucy) and there was a huge line, and it wasn’t even the weekend. The ticket clerk said 90% of the people were there to see Lucy. I’d wait a couple weeks for the lines to subside.
Go see it, I bet it gets pretty big crowds on the rock.
[/quote]
You bet correctly. I went to see a movie today (not Lucy) and there was a huge line, and it wasn’t even the weekend. The ticket clerk said 90% of the people were there to see Lucy. I’d wait a couple weeks for the lines to subside.[/quote]
Not a diehard movie fan eh? I remember having to wait in line an hour for a James Bond movie in Taipei just to buy tickets for the next show. They would open up ticket sales bout an hour after the movie started for the next showing. And lines galor for the Bond movies.
This quote? Totally dumb “review” by a person who did NOT see the movie yet. NObody should review a movie they did NOT even see !
Oh… come on. That’s not racism. Chinese, Korean, Thai, Japanese… all look the same to European and American people, so… what’s the problem with recruiting Koreans instead of Taiwanese
So right ! Thats why to the TAiwanese, all white people are Americans, whats the biggie.[/quote]
Hahaha, indeed.
It’s retarded, but some people even assume that in my country we speak English and use USD or something. Even if they know you are not a USA citizen, it doesn’t matter. Prices in USA dolars, and English as your mother tongue xD
I’ve only seen the trailer, and I was surprised/worried by the scene where she shoots a guy for not speaking English. What I remember from the trailer: she walks up, obviously in a rush (presumably in getaway mode), to two rather homely middle-aged Asian guys (taxi drivers? They’re leaning on cars chatting, anyway, and seem to be innocent bystanders). She asks if they speak English. One says no or shakes his head or something - she shoots him (dead?). She asks the other - do you speak English? He gives a terrified nod and answers with some kind of pidgin English. Just from the trailer, it certainly seemed to be played for laughs, and I found that disturbing. And yeah, in the trailer, basically every Asian guy (I didn’t catch the languages being spoken) is either a dumb ugly taxi driver, or a tattooed master villain, or muscle. I pretty much thought “Crap, I know that’s just the trailer, but Taiwan is PROUD this was made here?!”
But I’m already primed to dislike the film, because that old canard that we only use 10% of our brain has long been a pet peeve of mine - one of those urban myths I thought had died out years ago. Yet it’s the basic premise of the film. I was vaguely interested in seeing the film before, but have largely lost interest - as best I can tell from the trailer, it’s basically [strike]a magic black friend[/strike] [strike]Morpheus[/strike] Morgan Freeman guiding [strike]Nikita[/strike] [strike]Neo[/strike] [strike]Milla Jovovich[/strike] Scarlet Johansson through [strike]the Matrix[/strike] a process of achieving 100% brain power and then something something trippy galaxy colliding shit.
[quote=“jesus80”]
It’s retarded, but some people even assume that in my country we speak English and use USD or something. Even if they know you are not a USA citizen, it doesn’t matter. Prices in USA dolars, and English as your mother tongue xD[/quote]
English is the international language. To assume a white guy speaks English is no more wrong than to assume a Taiwanese speaks Mandarin.
The US dollar is the international currency… for now, at least.
English is the language for international business, alright. There are lots of people using it, correct. But that doesn’t imply that English is spoken everywhere and leave apart to be the mother tongue of anybody in the non-chinese countries xD.
As for the USD… it is an international currency, perfect. But currently I don’t give a damn about the exchange rate. I used to because I liked to buy things from eBay-anywhere, but I prefer people telling me prices in NT’s rather than in USD.
English is the language for international business, alright. There are lots of people using it, correct. But that doesn’t imply that English is spoken everywhere and leave apart to be the mother tongue of anybody in the non-chinese countries xD.
As for the USD… it is an international currency, perfect. But currently I don’t give a damn about the exchange rate. I used to because I liked to buy things from eBay-anywhere, but I prefer people telling me prices in NT’s rather than in USD.[/quote]
(Notices your nose is big)
I have a son in 7th grade, Jesus. Do you want to be his English tutor?
Yes, there’s a scene of Lucy killing the taxi driver for not speaking English. It’s what’s known in the film industry as a “gag”: i.e., a joke. And the clincher… IT’S ONLY A MOVIE. IT’S NOT REAL.
[quote=“Chris”]I saw the movie a few weeks ago. It’s not racist.
Yes, there’s a scene of Lucy killing the taxi driver for not speaking English. It’s what’s known in the film industry as a “gag”: i.e., a joke. And the clincher… IT’S ONLY A MOVIE. IT’S NOT REAL.[/quote]
Exactly. None of it is real. And shes crazed by the stuff she ingested so shes not normal either.
