The Irony of Movie Casting

Justin Chatwin as Goku

It would be really easy to just do a post on the countless number of Asian stereotypes in film and television, so that isn’t what I’m going to do (at least not right now). Instead, I’m going to be annoyed with really poor and just plain random movie casting. So it’s one thing to create a character for the sheer purpose of fulfilling a stereotype, but it’s a whole other thing when a role is essentially designed to be filled by an Asian, but isn’t. Although there are times when this can actually work out well, that isn’t always the case.

One of those fails would have to be the live-action film adaption of Dragonball Evolution. Not only was the movie a critical and commercial failure, it also had some of the most bizarre casting ever. I know this is coming from someone who grew up watching the anime, so maybe I just so happen to take extra offense to the poor casting, but anyone can see that it was BAD.

Since, it’s adapted from a manga and all of the characters are Japanese you would think that the casting directors would take a logical approach to this, but they didn’t. Now it’s one thing to leave the whole thing Asian and maintain the casting accordingly, or switch it up to accommodate a different cast. However, this movie didn’t take either approach, it took both. The cast was a bizarre mix of Asian American actors along with several Caucasian actors. Not only is that weird, but how is it that Goku is not even Asian!? It’s not even like Justin Chatwin looks similar, it was just a fail at casting. Who really thinks it’s a smart choice to have most of the supporting characters portrayed by Asian American actors, but then change it up with the main character? This is one of those times when not fitting the Asian template didn’t work.

However, I won’t say that it always turns out poorly. The Forbidden Kingdom starred Michael Angarano alongside Jackie Chan and Jet Li. Now typically I would be opposed to the random introduction of some scrawny little American boy into a martial arts’ film, but it worked. It was actually an entertaining plot, and a well-executed one (both of which were untrue in the case of Dragonball Evolution). And yeah I get that Asians in a martial arts’ film is pretty stereotypical that isn’t really the point of this post; this is about straying from the typical casting in Asian-geared films. The irony is that attempts to not be stereotypical can actually be worse than sticking with the original.