about the movie, Chiun, and hiring actors based on race, not acting talent

I just took a spin by the Internet Movie Database and read a few posts in the old Remo Williams 1985 movie thread. I see that a bunch of people there think Chiun should have been played by an Asian actor and that the worst sin imaginable is hiring a non-Asian and using makeup to make his eyes look right (as Chiun would say). I've heard this argument before -- as I'm sure some of you have -- and every time I hear it I find it asininity of the highest order. Joel Grey was the best thing about the lousy 1985 movie. If you don't think that's true, you're a.) not a Destroyer fan and b.) nuts. He wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but that was mostly because of bad writing, bad direction, bad special effects and bad wardrobe choices. In the twenty-five years since the original Remo Williams movie came out, the cement has hardened in the brains of a lot of people who are of the absolute opinion that the one thing that the old movie people got the most right is the one thing that has to be screwed around with the most. Phooey to that.

Chiun is a very tough character to pull off. Say you've got a casting call and only two people show up. In one chair you've got Joel Grey, in the other you've got the kid who played Short Round in Indiana Jones 2. According to a lot of people, Short Round automatically gets the role. Politically correct insanity really has become the law of the land. In my perfect world -- (which, granted, no longer exists) -- you hire the best actor for the role. Always the best actor for the role. Of course that's not saying there isn't the pitch-perfect Asian actor out there who could handle the role, and of course you go to Asian actors first because that only makes sense. But I wake up with night terrors when I think that the new producers might hire Jackie Chan or Jet Ski because they look the part and can kick like a Rockette. And it'd only be for their looks because neither of those guys has demonstrated that they can, well, act, let alone pull off all the tricky little character stuff that comes along with playing Chiun. Chiun is arrogant, nasty, greedy, racist and will kill you at the drop of a hat. Yet he's childlike, fiercely protective of Remo, and ultimately lovable. Way more acting than either Pidgin English Chan or Phonetic Li are capable of.

Sorry to unload but this has driven me nuts for years and the posts at IMDB set me off. I have for years heard otherwise intelligent people insisting, "nope, Chiun's gotta be an Asian, that's it, case closed."

As usual Warren put it best when he weighed in on this. Not an exact quote mind you, but he said something like: You've got two actors up for the role of Othello and according to the logic of these people you'd show Lawrence Olivier the door and hire Wesley Snipes. Amen, brother. Absolute lunacy.

Jim