The guy with the big pecs and bad teeth? I believe his name is Yuji Okumoto. He does tend to appear in a surprising number of minor roles, though his name obviously has not become well known.
Actually, his career reminds me of a conversation that I had yesterday. Mr. Okumoto is presumably of Japanese descent (and possibly origin, given his accent); regardless of his actual ancestry, however, I recall his being cast as a variety of Asian ethnicities in different movies. This undoubtedly points to both versatility in an actor and indifference/insensitivity from movie makers (and viewers) -- neither a major revelation.
On the other hand, after seeing "Shanghai Noon" last night, my girlfriend wondered about Lucy Liu's background. Playing an Imperial Chinese princess, her apparently Chinese descent seemed appropriate. My girlfriend was curious, though, if a movie produced by and in some part targeting Asian and Asian-Americans audiences would feel increased pressure to use the "correct" ethnicity of actor for given parts.
Presumably, the physical, cultural, and speech-pattern differences between the various Asian people would be highly distinctive and obvious to others similarly acculturated, and use of a "cross-cast" actor would be either a distraction or an intentional dramatic commentary.
We in the US seem to be quite forgiving of mismatched accents and roles for the commingled UK actors, interchangeably using Scots, English, Welsh, and Irish for each other without much public outcry. Indeed, there seems to be an entire sub-specialty of using different English dialects for undubbed "foreign" accents, particularly playing Russians and Eastern Europeans.
On the other hand, other groups (especially Latins and Native Americans) seem quite sensitized to the practice.
What do you think about the situation, and about the Asian-ethnic aspect in particular? If there is an elevated significance to "correct" casting of Asian-extraction actors, is doing so a constructive balance between respect for culture and freedom of human expression?
[This message has been edited by felix (edited 06-06-2000).]
