If they make a good movie, who cares? The important thing to me is that the characters have the right air about them. They can’t come across in their mannerisms as LA people. That’s why Uma Thurman was a complete failure in Kill Bill (to my mind). She did not express the mindset. If SJ can be the Major, all power to her.
Going a little OT, but IMO, Uma Thurman did fine in Kill Bill, for what it is. Kill Bill is mostly a cartoonish spoof of the Kung Fu and samurai movie genres, as opposed to ‘serious’. Sure, it’s QT’s homage to those genres, but few (or perhaps no) American directors who film ‘homages’ to the Kung Fu movie genre seem able to resist spoofing it.
[QUOTE=Jimbo;1293896]Going a little OT, but IMO, Uma Thurman did fine in Kill Bill, for what it is. Kill Bill is mostly a cartoonish spoof of the Kung Fu and samurai movie genres, as opposed to ‘serious’. Sure, it’s QT’s homage to those genres, but few (or perhaps no) American directors who film ‘homages’ to the Kung Fu movie genre seem able to resist spoofing it.[/QUOTE]
Even for a spoof, a woman swordfighter has to have a certain quality about her acting. Like Cheng Pei Pei. She has what I’m talking about. She has what Tarantino should have recognized and should have sought after. Even if it only shone through once in a while. Tarantino missed the boat completely with KB, and to be fair to Uma Thurman, maybe Tarantino just directed her badly. Something like what CPP has (but different) is what SJ has to find in herself to be the Major… and I think she probably can do it.
I can see how casting Tom Cruise as Akira (or rather Tetsuo) would have been very wrong. Totally worthy of nerd rage above all. But can somebody please explain to me why exactly casting Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi is wrong? She plays a cyborg. The intro shows how her body is being assembled.
Asia don’t care
It’s an American issue. America will soon need to grapple with not being #1 when it comes to movies.
Asian actors too busy to fret over Hollywood ‘white-washing’
Yuri Kageyama, Associated Press Updated 10:20 am, Thursday, June 30, 2016
Photo: Andrew Medichini, AP
In this Sept. 5, 2007, file photo, Japanese actress Kaori Momoi poses during the photo call for the movie “Sukiyaki Western Django” at the 64th Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy. The film world of Asia is too busy making movies of its own to fret much about the debate slamming Hollywood - the casting of white people in roles written for Asians. Momoi, who appeared in “Memoirs of a Geisha,” as well as Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov’s “The Sun,” suggested acting was ultimately about individual talent, not skin color or nationality
Photo: Lionel Cironneau, AP
In this May 18, 2013 file photo, actor Vijay Varma poses for photographers during a photo call for the film “Monsoon Shootout” at the 66th international film festival, in Cannes, southern France. The film world of Asia is too busy making movies of its own to fret much about the debate slamming Hollywood - the casting of white people in roles written for Asians. The Indian actor who starred in “Monsoon Shootout,” a crime story with multiple endings, shown at Cannes, eloquently directed by Amit Kumar, pointed out insularity was prevalent in Bollywood as well
Photo: Thibault Camus, AP
In this May 11, 2016, file photo, actress Gong Li arrives on the red carpet for the screening of the film Cafe Society and the Opening Ceremony at the 69th international film festival, Cannes, southern France. The film world of Asia is too busy making movies of its own to fret much about the debate slamming Hollywood - the casting of white people in roles written for Asians. Li, the star of Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou’s films, such as “Raise the Red Lantern,” characterized the dilemma as a “problem of marketability.”
Photo: Yoo Hyo-lim, AP
South Korean actress Claudia Kim poses during an interview in Seoul, South Korea, Thursday, June 30, 2016. The film world of Asia is too busy making movies of its own to fret much about the debate slamming Hollywood -_ the casting of white people in roles written for Asians. Kim, known in her native South Korea as Soo Hyun, noted she has been lucky to play independent Asian women in most movies, such as Dr. Helen Cho in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the 2015 movie based on Marvel comics. (Yoo Hyo-lim/Yonhap via AP)
TOKYO (AP) — The film world of Asia, known for producing Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Brillante Mendoza and other greats, is too busy making movies of its own to fret much about the debate slamming Hollywood — the casting of white people in roles written for Asians.
While hurt, irritated or dumb-founded perhaps about the so-called “white-washing” syndrome, performers here aren’t expressing the level of outrage of a Margaret Cho, George Takei or other Americans, The Associated Press has found.
Many shrugged off the phenomenon as inevitable, given commercial marketability needs, noting Asian films also cast well-known actors over and over.
Casting white people in non-white roles is as painfully old as Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu in American entertainment. That kind of monolithic casting continues — recently with the tapping of Tilda Swinton as a character that was originally Tibetan in the new Marvel “Dr. Strange” movie.
It’s also a sensitive topic. South Korean actor Lee Byung-hun declined to be interviewed through his representative, who noted Lee was set to be in a Hollywood film.
Kaori Momoi, who appeared in “Memoirs of a Geisha,” as well as Russian filmmaker Aleksandr Sokurov’s “The Sun,” suggested acting was ultimately about individual talent, not skin color or nationality.
Momoi praised the devotion, skill and professionalism of Scarlett Johansson, whose starring in “Ghost in the Shell,” based on a Japanese manga, has stirred up an uproar as a prime example of “white-washing.” Momoi played the mother of Johansson’s character.
“I felt blessed to have worked with her,” she said, urging actors to be selective of the directors they choose to work with. “And so what’s fantastic is fantastic. What fails just fails.”
Like other actors with experience in Asia, Momoi saw Hollywood more as an opportunity. She was already a superstar in Japan when she started acting in movies abroad about a decade ago. What she enjoyed was the challenging novelty of it all, “getting away from being Kaori Momoi,” as she described it.
“Compared to Japan, there is so much potential and recognition in the U.S. for independent films,” said Momoi in a telephone interview from Los Angeles.
She got to know film people at international festivals, including Berlin, which showed “Fukushima, Mon Amour,” a film she was in. She has become a director herself, having two films to her credit, including “Hee,” being released later this year, in which she also gives a harrowing rendition of an aging prostitute.
Claudia Kim, known in her native South Korea as Soo Hyun, noted she has been lucky to play independent Asian women in most movies, such as Dr. Helen Cho in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the 2015 movie based on Marvel comics.
But she was baffled when she learned a white actress was picked for the Asian role in a Hollywood movie she had auditioned for. She declined to identify that film.
“It is definitely not a pleasant experience,” she told the AP, calling the choice “ridiculous.”
Vijay Varma, an India actor who starred in “Monsoon Shootout,” a crime story with multiple endings that was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, pointed out insularity was prevalent in Bollywood as well.
Families dominate the business, although he was an exception and came from a family unrelated to movies. Bollywood counts on mass appeal, casting the “familiar,” just like Hollywood, he added.
When an effort that defies boundaries turns out to be a great movie, like “Life of Pi,” which starred an Indian actor, combined live action with computer graphics, and had a Taiwan-born director Ang Lee, “it feels really good,” Varma said.
While some Japanese may wonder why Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi is the heroine in “Memoirs of a Geisha,” they also feel no qualms routinely casting Japanese to play Chinese and other non-Japanese Asian roles, feigning embarrassingly phony accents and mannerisms.
Landing roles in Asian movies is relatively off-limits for Americans, usually relegated to blatantly “foreign” roles. Koji Fukada’s “Sayonara” starred Bryerly Long, an American, as a dying woman in Japan, but the film also starred a humanoid robot as her loyal companion.
Gong Li, the star of Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou’s films, such as “Raise the Red Lantern,” characterized the dilemma as a “problem of marketability.”
“Asian culture has not meshed well with U.S. film culture. It’s not integrated. There are a lot of American A-listers who are making movies in China right now, who have not done well. So it’s the same whether you cast a famous actor or not not-so famous one. Chinese people don’t know who they are,” she said as she walked the red carpet recently at Cannes.
Examples abound. “Hollywood Adventures” had an American setting and Chinese stars but was doomed by the stiff translation of English dialogue. Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen made the action fantasy “Outcast” for the Chinese market, where it flopped. Jackie Chan’s “Dragon Blade,” co-starring Adrien Brody and John Cusack, was a hit in China, but its U.S. showing failed to replicate the martial arts superstar’s past Hollywood successes.
Matt Damon and director Zhang Yimou are hoping for a better reception in their upcoming science-fiction thriller “The Great Wall.”
And many performers in both places hope for a more multicultural future.
Respecting diversity in casting could lead not only to better films but also a better world, said Monisha Shiva, an Indian-American actress who has worked in both India and the U.S., and found the former to be more empowering.
“I was the center. I was the story,” she said in a telephone interview from New York.
“The magic of acting is to give people visions and imagination, and imagine a different world. You want that. It’s important to use actors of color,” said Shiva. “Art is to start to make new visions. And it’s a way to heal.”
Associated Press writers Angela Chen in Hong Kong and Youkyung Lee in Seoul, South Korea, contributed to this report.
Follow Yuri Kageyama on Twitter at https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/yuri-kageyama
Honestly, I don’t see why Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, etc. actors/actresses based in their native countries would even be asked what they might think of Hollywood whitewashing. A high percentage of Asians in Asia period wouldn’t even comprehend the concept of whitewashing. I’ve always said that it’s an Asian-American issue, not an Asian issue. I give far more credibility to what George Takei, B.D. Wong, Margaret Cho and others have had to say on the matter than I would Kaori Momoi, Gong Li, et al. There are many talented Asian-American actors out there. Why have several of them relocated to work as actors in the countries of their ancestry, even if some of them couldn’t even speak the language?
And for anyone who says that white (or black) people couldn’t become big stars in Japan, China, South Korea, Hong Kong, etc., that is a weak argument. None of those countries are as diverse and multi-cultural as the U.S., which likes to tout that fact, but does not reflect it onscreen.
GHOST IN THE SHELL All Teaser Trailers (2017) Scarlett Johansson Movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUtG93BebJ4
I raise you one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[YT]wUtG93BebJ4[/YT]
Jjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjj
GHOST IN THE SHELL Super Bowl Spot
GHOST IN THE SHELL Super Bowl Spot Trailer (2017) Scarlett Johansson Action Movie HD
Ghost In The Shell (2017) - Official Trailer - Paramount Pictures
Original voice cast
Live-action Ghost in the Shell brings back main anime cast for its Japanese-dubbed version
Casey Baseel 4 days ago
The protagonist of the Hollywood anime adaptation will always look like Scarlet Johansson, but she won’t always sound like her.
The titles of a lot of anime and manga were chosen by their creators simply because they sound cool, but “Ghost in the Shell” actually has a strong connection to the events of the series. Ghost in the Shell’s most defining characteristic is the prevalence of technology that allows people to transfer their consciousness (ghost) into a different mechanical body or vessel (shell), and the franchise’s plotlines often explore the military, political, and philosophical ramifications of those capabilities.
Trailer for the upcoming Ghost in the Shell movie
So it’s sort of fitting that even when Ghost in the Shell makes the leap to live-action with the soon-to-be-released Hollywood adaptation, when Scarlet Johansson’s character, The Major, opens her mouth, in some versions she’ll sound exactly like the 1995 Ghost in the Shell anime movie’s protagonist Motoko Kusanagi.
Ahead of the live-action Ghost in the Shell’s release in Japanese theaters, it’s been announced that the Japanese-dubbed version of the film will feature the voice of Atsuko Tanaka as The Major. Tanaka voiced Kusanagi in not only the 1995 theatrical anime that served as the franchise’s breakout moment in the international anime and sci-fi communities, but also its sequel Innocence and the Stand Alone Complex TV series.
Oddly enough, the red bodysuit The Major can be seen wearing in the trailer is inspired by Kusanagi’s outfit from Ghost in the Shell: Arise, in which Tanaka was replaced by a different voice actress.
Also reprising their roles from the anime film and TV series are Akio Otsuka as Kusanagi’s burley cohort Batou and Koichi Yamadera as cybernetics-averse Togusa. Having seen much of the live-action Ghost while recording their dialogue, Ostuka expressed his admiration for the film, saying “There were many scenes that were done just like they were in the anime, and I was happy to see that the filmmakers have such an obvious respect for the source material.”
As with many foreign films, the live-action Ghost in the Shell will screen in both its original language (English) with Japanese subtitles and also in Japanese-dubbed format. Tanaka is hoping some fans come out to see the latter version, though. “I am so happy that the Hollywood version is being dubbed with the original cast,” the voice actress said. “Closing my eyes, and just working off of Otsuka and Yamadera’s voices, like animation scenes come flying, it was a mysterious experience.”
As a side benefit, closing her eyes would also help prevent being distracted by questionable set design in the live-action film.
Ghost in the Shell opens in Japanese theaters on April 7.
Source: Livedoor News via Jin
Images: YouTube/Paramount Pictures
Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s now got the opening theme from the Ghost in the Shell PlayStation game stuck in his head.
I gotta say that one of the things I find enchanting about ScaJo is her voice.
I am major
MAJOR BACKFIRE 
‘Ghost In The Shell’s Viral Campaign Has Already Backfired A Bit
CALEB READING
ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR
03.13.17
Ghost In The Shell opens March 31st and is continuing its marketing blitz — from which we’ve already seen the first trailer, a Superbowl spot, the second trailer, a clip, and a featurette — with a new promo (above) and a viral marketing campaign (below) which has summarily backfired.
The viral marketing campaign kicked off with this video set to FKA Twigs’ “Figure 8”:
In the promo, Scarlett Johansson informs us “I am hunted. I am the hunter. I am Major.” The video then points viewers to IAmMajor.me, where they can upload a photo and a caption to answer the question, “Who are you?” Considering the film has been under fire for casting Johansson as a white, Americanized version of the Major, you might believe what happened next.
As is the case whenever a company lets the public input their own captions, things predictably went pear-shaped, with VzA starting things off:
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
Whoopsidoodle.
continued next post
Continued from previous post
From there, other folks on Twitter replied with jokes about other instances of white actors playing Asian characters, like this reference to how Iron Fist actor Finn Jones briefly quit Twitter (they always come back) after scathing criticisms.
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
VIA TWITTER
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(Via Paramount Pictures, Screen Crush, ValerieComplex, helpmeskeletor, Maria_Giesela, Nice_White_Lady, DLohRidah, IWriteAllDay_, gleebix, and ZweiXross)
Whatev about Danny Rand being originally white - these Ghost in the Shell meme spoofs are pretty funny.
No ghost. Just a shell…
Would it have done better with an Asian starlet?
Ghost in the Shell dies at the box office
Controversial movie met with yawns at release
by Ben Kuchera Apr 3, 2017, 9:45am EDT
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Jasin Boland/Paramount Pictures
The live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell died at the box office this weekend, bringing in $19 million in ticket sales against a budget of $110 million. The film brought in $40 million internationally, although it has yet to open in Japan or China.
Ghost in the Shell suffered from negative buzz every step of the way, from the casting of Scarlett Johansson in the lead role, a character who was Japanese in the original manga and animated versions of the story. Fans used an official meme generator to show their displeasure at the casting.
[QUOTE]
View image on Twitter
Follow
Pink Veronica * @riotgrrlriot
I Am White. I Am Appropriated. #IAmMajor http://www.iammajor.me/m/HJKkxMEsl
5:28 AM - 13 Mar 2017
421 421 Retweets 876 876 likes
The Steve Aoki remix of the original theme was also met with derision from fans and those with ears.
But the real issue may have been that the film was just bad, even when you remove the issues of casting and the clumsy marketing.
“Ghost in the Shell, by contrast, is a movie that says absolutely nothing,” our review states. “It’s a generic story told by a generic director in a generic way. The plot, predictable as it is, trundles along only because our heroes repeatedly prove themselves oblivious to obvious traps. A major plot point hinges on a woman opening up to a complete stranger about her dead daughter within 30 seconds of meeting her … because, sure, that’s what people do? The film doesn’t even bother explaining the villain’s motivation.”
We’ll see how the movie does internationally, but we’re going to go out on a limb and guess that a sequel is not on the way.[/QUOTE]