This is an article I found. I enjoyed reading it and thought some of you might like to read it too.



Is Hollywood Giving Asian Men More Love?
By: Philip W. Chung, Oct 22, 2007


I caught the second episode of NBC’s revamped The Bionic Woman on Wednesday night, and Korean American actor Will Yun Lee plays Jae Kim, one bad ass mofo. He gets to kick ass, has an interesting back-story, is clearly an American character so no accent or other FOB characteristics and, rarest of all, gets to play a fully realized sexual being.

Kim pines for his ex-wife, played by blond Battlestar Galactica hottie Katee Sackhoff, who also happens to be the original evil bionic woman whom Kim had to “kill.” In the episode I saw, the two even got their own love scene.


Just a few years ago, it would have been hard to imagine a character like this on prime-time network TV. But along with characters played by Daniel Dae Kim of Lost (to be joined this season by The Sopranos’ Ken Leung); B.D. Wong of Law & Order: SVU; Kal Penn of House; Masi Oka, Sendhil Ramamurthy and James Kyson Lee of Heroes, and even Rex Lee of HBO’s Entourage, not only are there more Asian male faces, but also three-dimensional characters who are more than token window dressing.

Mainstream film may be slower in showing love to the brothers, but there are small signs of progress — Kal Penn and John Cho will return next year in the Harold and Kumar sequel, and director Justin Lin seems determined to single-handedly change Hollywood’s perception of Asian men with films like Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift and his latest, Finishing the Game.

But is there a genuine shift taking place, or is this just a blip that will soon be forgotten?

Two decades ago, a young Vietnamese American actor named Dustin Nguyen burst onto the scene playing an undercover detective on the TV series 21 Jump Street. Nguyen’s character was just one of the guys and got to catch the baddies alongside his fellow heartthrobs, including a young Johnny Depp.

That experience has made Nguyen sensitive to how Hollywood has portrayed APA males over the years.

“Have things changed? Well, you can’t ignore shows like Lost or Heroes that have a very intelligent treatment of Asian males,” says Nguyen, who also stars in Finishing the Game. “But I wonder how much improvement in terms of quality there has been for Asian American males.”

Let’s not forget that in the 1960s Hollywood gave a shot to men like James Shigeta, who played the romantic lead in films like The Crimson Kimono and Flower Drum Song, and George Takei on Star Trek. However, those turned out to be just temporary blips on the road to business-as-usual.

But there are reasons why we might look at our current situation with guarded optimism.

If a genuine shift for the positive does occur, I think future historians will look at both Lost and Heroes as watershed moments. Not only were both shows major hits and pop culture phenomena, but their Asian male characters have become memorable, break-out presences who have made an impact on all viewers. I doubt NBC would have allowed The Bionic Woman’s producers to make Lee’s character an Asian American male had they not seen the success of similar characters on those previous shows. If these characters and shows continue to succeed, you can bet that the powers that be will be more open to do the same.

On the film front, I know of at least a dozen Hollywood projects in development featuring prominent Asian or APA male characters in non-stereotypical roles.

Whether these films ever get made and have an impact remains to be seen. But I think the best bets are our own Justin Lins. Just as Spike Lee almost single-handedly spawned a new wave of African American filmmakers and actors, all we need is that one guy to lead the way.

Philip W. Chung is a writer and co-artistic director of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble.

Its about time! dont ya think?

Hell yeah.. way over due.

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Hollywood never does anything to be morally correct about things. It always centers around the might greenback and they're realizing the buying power and marketing niche of asians. That more than anything is contributing to asian rise IMO. Much like the economic power of african-americans caused a shift in holywood films staring and creating by and for that community.

Unless you see a mainstream outfit for asians by asians much like what BET has done for the black community, asians in general will garner much presence in minor roles. Still have a ways to go in the mainstream starring in blockbuster feature films.

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This is definitely a good starting point. I am skeptical about it turning into the norm. Films like Harold and Kumar goes to White Castle just did well because that is how non-asians think of us. Shy, sex starved, and geeky. I do agree the Bionic Women character is a step in the right direction.