Any Chinese star that is not a martial arts star?

A

Aspiring Mogul

This came up when I was attending the 2012 American Film Market. Someone told me that every Chinese film star got his fame in the martial arts genre. IOW, no Chinese actor got it made in romance or Westerns or sci-fi.

I can't think of one - can anyone name a Chinese film star that is not in the martial arts genre?
 
Okay, I'll assume that by Chinese film star you include mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan (because really, mainland China doesn't even have much martial arts stars).

Chow Yun-Fat: yes he was in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon but he already made his fame with his 'heroic bloodshed' (action gangster films) films with John Woo and Ringo Lam. He also had a few early romance pictures that he was known for.

Tony Leung: again, he was just in The Grandmaster recently but he was made famous for his work with art film directors Hou Hsiao-hsien and especially Wong Kar-Wai (In The Mood For Love being his most notable work). He has also been in films in a variety of genres but never martial arts until 2013 because he was never trained as a martial artist (that may not be true if Red Cliff has him doing significant martial arts scenes, but either way that was in 2008/2009). He was also in two John Woo films.

Leslie Cheung: an extremely talented singer and actor that is known as the 'eternal youth' of Hong Kong. He starred in several popular films and art films as well. One of his first notable roles is in Nomad, a teen film that blurs the line between its genre to become an art film. His most famous work is in Chen Kaige's Farewell, My Concubine, John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, and a variety of Wong Kar-Wai films.

Gong Li: Li is primarily known for her roles in Zhang Yimou's early drama masterpieces such as Raise The Red Lantern, Red Sorghum, and To Live. As usual she did end up making a martial arts film much much later in her career with Curse Of The Golden Flower

Kenny Bee: the star of many cheesy romantic comedies, he's not a great actor or singer in my opinion but he did some great work in Shanghai Blues, basically a tribute to the classic Shanghai films of the 30's.

Anthony Wong: he's not much of a leading man but if you watch a lot of Hong Kong films (especially Infernal Affairs), you'll know him. He has been in some martial arts films but I think he's much more famous for Hard Boiled, The Mission, and the Infernal Affairs trilogy.

Grace Chang: she's Hong Kong's Mambo Girl and of course she was primarily in musicals. She's a lot of fun to watch and she definitely was never in a martial arts film.

Zhou Xuan: one of China's most famous classic singers and actresses, she was around in the 30's before martial arts films were made.

Linyu Ruan: probably China's biggest early silent film star, again there was no martial arts films back then.

Anita Mui: a famous singer/actress known primarily for her romantic roles. I may be stretching though since she's done a few martial arts films as well, but those aren't what got her famous initially.

Kang-sheng Lee: maybe not a "star" but he's well-known among Tsai Ming-liang's fans as he is in every one of Tsai's films. And he is in them almost exclusively which of course means no martial arts films.

Sihung Lung: also maybe not a "star" but he's well-known among Ang Lee's followers for his Father Knows Best trilogy, Lee's first three films.

I'd also like to mention Sylvia Chang but she's actually in several martial arts films even though she is more well-known for her dramatic roles.

I think that the reason why so many martial arts actors/actress are China's biggest stars is because in reality mainland China has very few stars, and the Taiwanese art films are more known for their directors so that just leaves us with Hong Kong cinema to provide stars. And Hong Kong cinema's essentially foundation after the 1950's is definitely the martial arts films. That is really their contribution to cinema because I would argue that nearly all of their popular cinema (which means I exclude Wong Kar-Wai and Stanley Kwan), including gangster films, romantic comedies, horror films, dramas, etc. are built on the foundation that martial arts cinema started with its style of cinematography, staging, even acting. The Hong Kong cinema is very kinetic because of that, and so its stars are able to move out from martial arts or into martial arts with ease.

There is also of course the fact that Hong Kong stars tend to dabble in several genres. Maggie Cheung for example has been in art films by Wong Kar-Wai and Stanley Kwan, martial arts films by Jackie Chan and others, and a variety of comedy, drama, and romance roles. I really don't see much of an equivalent in American cinema where we usually stars of a certain genre. So even many of the ones that I mentioned which don't specialize in the martial arts genres and aren't well-known for it, have dabbled in the martial arts genre especially in recent years (probably due to the neo-wuxia explosion of the early 2000's).

LOL I wrote so much, I just love Chinese cinema!
 
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I just saw "Ip Man" and "Ip Man: The Final Fight", so I'm in a martial-arts mode. :)

Anyway, when I say, "Chinese", I mean someone of Chinese descent. I ask this because the person who brought this up in the 2012 AFM festival is a Chinese-American aspiring actor from LA - he was taller than me, had black belts in various styles, and won some competitions.

Anyone going to the 2014 AFM? :)
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
I just saw "Ip Man" and "Ip Man: The Final Fight", so I'm in a martial-arts mode. :)

Anyway, when I say, "Chinese", I mean someone of Chinese descent. I ask this because the person who brought this up in the 2012 AFM festival is a Chinese-American aspiring actor from LA - he was taller than me, had black belts in various styles, and won some competitions.

Anyone going to the 2014 AFM? :)
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Cool, I want to see those films too!
You should also probably check out Wong Kar-Wai's The Grandmaster which is his take on the Ip Man story, although it doesn't seem to be a traditional martial arts film.

Yeah that's what I thought, that's why my reply featured Chinese stars from the three national cinemas. I think mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong should be considered separate national cinemas though because they have very very very different cinematic traditions.
 
I saw "The Grandmaster", and, as you can see, the Cantonese can be quite different from the Mandarins.

As for the cinematic traditions, Hong Kong would be different, because of its British influence. But, culturally, the Cantonese in Guangdong are closer to the Hong Kong Chinese than they would be to the Beijing residents, and I don't know if Guangdong filmmaking would be similar to Hong Kong filmmaking.
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
I saw "The Grandmaster", and, as you can see, the Cantonese can be quite different from the Mandarins.

As for the cinematic traditions, Hong Kong would be different, because of its British influence. But, culturally, the Cantonese in Guangdong are closer to the Hong Kong Chinese than they would be to the Beijing residents, and I don't know if Guangdong filmmaking would be similar to Hong Kong filmmaking.
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Well that's a perspective I didn't consider, but I always found the cinematic traditions to be very different for several other reasons as well. First is the Communist influence on mainland Chinese cinema, not only were many of the early great Chinese films propagandistic in nature, but they also had to face a lot of censorship. Then for a long period there were few great Chinese films made due to a lot of censorship and economic problems in China. Then of course the Fifth Generation of 'film school' filmmakers came along and changed everything. Their films were subversive so censorship came back strong and now the Sixth Generation has a bunch of talent but it is mainly underground filmmaking, and filmmaking that is destined to international film festivals and not appreciated by a wide Chinese audience.

The Taiwanese cinema had similar problems with censorship at times, but their cinema is much different. The early Taiwanese films were kind of like lame versions of Hong Kong films, sometimes even sharing the same stars but along came a generation of bold artistic filmmakers which started a movement that came to be known as the New Taiwanese Cinema featuring Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Wu Nien-jen. Then came along the Second New Wave with Tsai Ming-liang and early Ang Lee. These films were influenced by a lot of European arthouse films as well as classic Asian films.

And of course the Hong Kong cinema is the most commercial of the bunch. What sets it apart the most is its kinetic style of filmmaking developed throughout the years primarily through the martial arts film. Unlike China and Taiwan, Hong Kong cinema has had two strong modes of cinematic production: commercial and artistic. Of course both of these types of cinema cross between each other, but what I'm trying to get at is that China and Taiwan never really produced great commercial films unlike Hong Kong. I would also say that the Hong Kong cinema had strong influence from its capitalist market that pumped out tons of films of varying quality similar to the way that Old Hollywood produced films. But what I love about Hong Kong films is their spontaneity that results in a more episodic narrative structure.

I think that all three Chinese national cinemas are amazing in their own ways, but there's definitely significant differences in the aesthetics of each one. It's a shame that political and economic problems have hindered the growth of mainland China and Taiwanese cinema and now Hong Kong as well as it is being taken over by China. But there's still a lot of talent there with guys like Jia Zhangke always making amazing films!
 
You should tell us your specific criteria.

You said “Chinese films star”. So MiniJames gave you a great list.
Then you said you mean someone of Chinese descent. So are you
asking for Chinese-Americans? Chinese-Canadians? And when you
say “star” I suspect you have a specific criteria in mind. I know of
several working Chinese-American actors. I wonder if they will fit
your specific criteria.
 
MiniJamesW said:
Gong Li: Li is primarily known for her roles in Zhang Yimou's early drama masterpieces such as Raise The Red Lantern, Red Sorghum, and To Live. As usual she did end up making a martial arts film much much later in her career with Curse Of The Golden Flower
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To Live! I've been trying to think of the name of that movie for ages! I loved that movie! Watched it a long time ago with a friend who had a crush on Gong Li, so I think we watched just about every film she was in. To Live was my favorite.
 
It's well known among Asian Americans that Hollywood loves to cater to stereotypes of certain ethnic groups. In particular, East Asians guys are either the accented delivery guy, gangster, computer geek or asexual martial artists and the gals are dragon ladys, submissive slaves, just sex crazed fiends that only want have sex with white men. Things have been slowly getting better but Hollywood is in no hurry and most Asian Americans seem to be either oblivious or indifferent so there's plenty of blame to go around.

I went into screenwriting because over 10 years ago I read that if you want a fairer portrayal of Asian Americans, you have to write your own stories. That seemed fair enough to me. But now that I've actually written a good story (a romcom) we face whitewashing, a term for replacing any and all Asians in a movie with white people in order to make it more "marketable" (i.e. Avatar, Akira, etc.) Because if you have any US-born Asian American friends, you know they probably talk and act just like you do so hey why not replace the Asian face!

That's another reason I'm taking this leap of faith into directing and producing my own film. But I have to prove something -- that I can make money if I cast Asian actors acting like (gasp) Americans!

You can probably Google plenty of articles about this phenomenon.
 
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directorik said:
You should tell us your specific criteria.

You said “Chinese films star”. So MiniJames gave you a great list.
Then you said you mean someone of Chinese descent. So are you
asking for Chinese-Americans? Chinese-Canadians? And when you
say “star” I suspect you have a specific criteria in mind. I know of
several working Chinese-American actors. I wonder if they will fit
your specific criteria.
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I didn't come up with this - someone at the AFM did. I would refer to someone of Chinese descent. And, when I mean "star", I mean someone who would be known all over the world, like, say, Peter Falk of Colombo, or James Garner, or Seth Rogen.
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
I didn't come up with this - someone at the AFM did. I would refer to someone of Chinese descent. And, when I mean "star", I mean someone who would be known all over the world, like, say, Peter Falk of Colombo, or James Garner, or Seth Rogen.
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Ah well if you mean someone on a popular international scale I would say only my first four listed qualify. But it also depends, because most people that I know personally don't even know Chow Yun Fat (and if they do, then they probably don't even know his name), they only know Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan (without even really being familiar with much of their actual work most of the time). I generally think of a 'star' as someone that is a well-known actor within their certain area of cinema (there are stars within the arthouse crowd, stars within a national cinema, cult stars, and stars on a mainstream global scale), because in reality I think that on a large massive international scale nothing is on par with the popularity of Hollywood films. In my post I focused on stars that are definitely stars within their nation's cinema.
 
MiniJamesW said:
Ah well if you mean someone on a popular international scale I would say only my first four listed qualify. But it also depends, because most people that I know personally don't even know Chow Yun Fat (and if they do, then they probably don't even know his name), they only know Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan (without even really being familiar with much of their actual work most of the time). I generally think of a 'star' as someone that is a well-known actor within their certain area of cinema (there are stars within the arthouse crowd, stars within a national cinema, cult stars, and stars on a mainstream global scale), because in reality I think that on a large massive international scale nothing is on par with the popularity of Hollywood films. In my post I focused on stars that are definitely stars within their nation's cinema.
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So ... is there an actor of Chinese descent who is famous and is not a martial arts star? I can't think of one.

For the Japanese, I can think of George "Sulu" Takei, but not for the Chinese.
 
Always a star in my book....


short_round.jpg
 
Aspiring Mogul said:
Good point about Keanu Reeves, but Short Round is, first of all, Vietnamese, and, second, he never became a star, just a one-hit wonder.
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Damn, you're right. I looked at the page below - I now realize it was his CHARACTER, not the actor. Whatever, Short Round is still a little badass two hit wonder. Goonies never say die.

http://indianajones.wikia.com/wiki/Short_Round

I think Keanu is more of a stretch than Short Round, at least in the department of 'being asian.' He's a bit of everything, according to Wikipedia. He's about as Chinese as I am Cherokee Indian. (Not a whole lot of percentage, but it's there, hah!)

'His father, who is a Hawaiian-born American, has English, Native Hawaiian, Chinese, Irish, and Portuguese ancestry.[6][7][8][9][10] Reeves has said: "My grandmother is Chinese and Hawaiian, so I was around Chinese art, furniture and cuisine when I was growing up".[11]'

But, as per the above quote, I get why we'd list him, at least in regard to his upbringing.
 
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The issue as Asian Americans see it, do you perceive Keanu Reeves as Asian and is he playing Asian roles? (47 Ronin is first I've ever seen his mixed background used) Of course not.

Yet networks and Hollywood will track their background and issue official diversity reports listing them as minorities and patting themselves on the back for their "progressiveness." Just recently, the SHIELD show had controversy for listed two Asian women cast members -- one is Ming-Na, can you try and guess the other?

The big issue for me and others -- why does Hollywood think it will LOSE money by casting minority Americans???
 
DIY said:
The issue as Asian Americans see it, do you perceive Keanu Reeves as Asian and is he playing Asian roles? (47 Ronin is first I've ever seen his mixed background used) Of course not.

Yet networks and Hollywood will track their background and issue official diversity reports listing them as minorities and patting themselves on the back for their "progressiveness." Just recently, the SHIELD show had controversy for listed two Asian women cast members -- one is Ming-Na, can you try and guess the other?

The big issue for me and others -- why does Hollywood think it will LOSE money by casting minority Americans???
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That is an interesting point. Sounds a whole lot like... college, actually. Same dynamic of faux-diversifying.

What do we define as a 'minority American' ? That may help boil down the issue. Because, many people would classify an African American as a 'minority' in many instances - yet we have so many stunningly great African American actresses and actors in the popular scene. Those of asian descent, though, you are right, there are significantly less.

I also agree that casting Keanu and calling it diversity is absolutely absurd.

This makes me think of the comment Cate Blanchett's comment at the Oscars this year, when she mentioned that a strong female lead can indeed make money. I felt her comment was odd when I first heard it, because there are plenty of strong female leads, and I never heard any debate of them losing money for studios. It's the same question we're trying to address here, though, so I thought it was worth mentioning.
 
Yes I'm sure we'll be seeing a black widow spin off any time now. I know electra did amazing.

Everyone is missing the real point here. How do you watch Ip Man, and then NOT watch Ip Man 2. Decide to ditch the director, ditch donnie yen, and then go watch some other final fight ip man thing instead
 
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