Chow Yun-Fat Will Portray Confucius in Biopic

BuzzSugar — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 08:30:27 PDT

Happy 2,560th birthday, Confucius! Later this year, a biopic about the ancient Chinese philosopher will screen to mark the occasion of Confucius's birthday and the 60th anniversary of the People's Republic of China. The movie is backed by the Chinese government and will feature Chow Yun-Fat in the main role. Here's more:

[Chow Yun-Fat], who starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and dozens of hardboiled Hong Kong gangster movies, will star in the $2.8 million pic as the thinker who lived more than 2,500 years ago. Virtually banned during the Cultural Revolution, Confucius is undergoing a major revival in newly consumerist China for his teachings on morals and character.

What a role for an actor to land! I think I'd be excited about this if I were Chow Yun-Fat. I'm intrigued to see how this project progresses. What do you think of a Confucius biopic?

Source

China Censors Pirates of the Caribbean

BuzzSugar — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 05:30:00 PDT

The Chinese government has edited out many of Chow Yun-Fat's scenes from this summer's Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End for the "vilifying and defacing [of] the Chinese." Deciding the scenes were bolstering age-old demonizing stereotypes, censors "sliced Chow's screen time down to about 10 minutes."

Though I'm not sure editing out the scenes that include Chow Yun-Fat is helpful, I must say I can easily understand the anger surrounding the depiction of the Chinese in the movie as utterly cruel and conniving, something I also took issue with upon watching the movie. It perplexes me that filmmakers are still able to portray Asians in this way. To me, it is another example of Hollywood portraying Asian characters as one-dimensional stereotypes, such as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's or Sixteen Candles' Long Duk Dong, roles that are now largely considered embarrassingly offensive.

And yes, I know other characters are also portrayed as villainous or cruel (I realize not just the Asian characters are pirates), but the point is not to be equal-opportunity with making other characters in the movie villainous, but rather that filmmakers don't seem to be evolving in their sensitivity to the issue.

I do, however, feel sorry for audiences in China because apparently this cut-up version makes the movie even more confusing that it originally was!