Chinese elements in Hollywood films

2015-06-23       Source:chinadaily.com.cn

Chinese kung fu actor Bruce Lee. 

Hollywood is looking East.

And not just for ticket buyers. It is incorporating more and more Chinese elements into its mega-productions.

Chinese elements, from martial arts and pandas to cheongsams and the Chinese language, are getting more and more prominent placement in Western films. Here, we list just a few of these elements.

The Chinese people

Hollywood has a history of casting Caucasian actors for films where the race of the character is anything but white, including the role of Mr. Yunioshi by American actor Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's and Christian Bale's role as an Egyptian prince in Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Now, things are changing.

Kung fu superstar Bruce Lee was perhaps the first Chinese face Hollywood familiarized itself with. Action stars Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-fat and Jet Lee followed his footsteps, but for a long period of time, it seemed like all Chinese actors who got roles in Hollywood films were all associated with kung fu.

Actress Michelle Yeoh (right) and actor Pierce Brosnan in Tomorrow never dies.  

he appearance of Chinese actresses in the world's film factory began to change things a little bit.

With award-winning actress Gong Li starring in Miami Vice, and Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow never dies, more ethnically Chinese faces were introduced to the silver screen around the world. Actresses Zhang Ziyi, Fan Bingbing, Li Bingbing, Zhou Xun and Maggie Q have all starred in Western productions.

Alongside the actors，Chinese directors have also worked their way onto the international scene.

Chinese director Ang Lee won award for best director at the 85th Academy Awards.  

Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee, with many box office hits under his belt (Brokeback Mountain, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, The Life of Pi), is already a household name in Hollywood. Jason Woo has made a name for himself as an action film director with Hard Target, Face/Off and Mission Impossible: II. China's veteran director Zhang Yimou filmed The Flowers of War in 2011, and is working on a Sino-US co-production Great Wall.

Besides actors and directors, characters based on Chinese people are more prevalent in Western productions today. Chinese migrant workers contributed a great deal to making the boat in the film 2012. Although they were small characters in the film as a whole, they were crucial for the entire flow of the film.

A screen capture from upcoming film Kung Fu Panda 3. 

Symbols of China

Kung fu and pandas seem to be the two elements immediately associated with China, and this also shows in films.

The Karate Kid, starring Jackie Chan and actor Will Smith's son Jayden Smith, tells the story of how a boy, who was bullied at school, changed the course of his life after learning martial arts from a car mechanic (played by Chan). The film earned more than 1.6 billion yuan ($25.76 million) in ticket sales in China.

Sometimes, kung fu is reenacted by non-Chinese actors.

In the Ice Age 2, the little squirrel makes a sound very similar to those screams let off by Bruce Lee in his films. The iconic pose Keanu Reeves performed in The Matrix, bent backwards, is one of the classic moves by real life kung fu master Huang Feihong.

Animated film Kung Fu Panda, a hugely successful production globally with the third installment coming up next January, is also a perfect fusion of China's national martial art kung fu and China's national treasure, the panda.

Alec Baldwin in Pearl Harbor.  

The Chinese language

Actor Bruce Willis showed his language skills in the film Red, where he said "A few years ago, I lived in Wuhan" in Chinese. This caused quite a stir in the theaters for Chinese audiences.

Willis is not the only one who spoke Chinese on the big screen.

In Pearl Harbor, Alec Baldwin taught American soldiers how to say "I am an American" in Chinese. Tom Cruise shouted for pedestrians to get out of the way as he ran around the streets of Shanghai in Mission Impossible: III. Nicole Kidman declared her innocence when she saw the male protagonist die in Cantonese in Australia. Nicholas Cage also delivered one of his most recognized lines "I prefer to shoot" in Chinese in Lord of War

Actresses in cheongsams in Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War. 

Chinese dress

Thirteen courtesans wearing Chinese cheongsams walking in a line in Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War formed a beautiful sight of Eastern beauty. Actress Maggie Cheung's 23 cheongsams in director Wong Kar-wai's In the mood for love sometimes drew viewers' attention from her acting to her wardrobe. Kirsten Dunst put on a red cheongsam as she attended a party in Spiderman 2. Kidman's Chinese dresses in Australia were also a major selling point that drew audiences to the theaters.

Poster for The Painted Veil.  

Chinese locations

Aside from using Chinese elements in films, many Hollywood films were literally filmed in China.

Tom Cruise's Mission Impossible: III chose the metropolis Shanghai as one of its filming locations. The mountains in James Cameron's Avatar were based on the Yellow Mountain in Central China's Anhui province. The film The Painted Veil, starring Edward Norton and Naomi Watts was filmed in China's Beijing, Shanghai and Guangxi province. Angelina Jolie fought battles against a background of terracota warriors in Lara Croft Tomb Raider：The Cradle of Life. China's delicate, somewhat mysterious and rich history of culture was also shown in the film Countess, which was shot partially in the old towns of Shanghai.