There was a very crappy article on Japanese tabloid Gendai on Aug.7, criticizing Sanada-san as spending too much time in Hollywood but none of his films making any commercial success, while he is fading away in Japan. It also compares Ken Watanabe and Hiro (usual tactic of vicious tabloids), and even goes on to say his "gaijin(foreigner)-like" gesturein English interview is "disgusting".
It is heavily crossfired on 2channel bulletin board, and fans are completely ignoring it, but it is sad to see some of my fellow Japanese people still have this tendency of getting overly jealous about someone's success, and of rediculing the sincere effort to achieve a far-reachig goal. I must admit that is one VERY BAD trait of my country people demonstrated throughout its long history.
And by the way, the reporter either is a total moron and did not know RH3 was just about to be released in the U.S., or just wanted to hush out the article before his point gets proven totally wrong. HEHE, IN YOUR FACE!!
On the other hand, while reading this morning's nice Yomiuri article, there was a "related link" to another article, called "Wanted: second Ken". It says that there have been many Japanese-themed films in Hollywood lately, but as there are very few Japanese or Japanese-origin actors/actresses in Hollywood, their shortage is becoming quite serious. Often, Chinese or Korean origin cast takes the gap, but these days, the role spec often specify "Japanese", "Chinese", "Korean", etc., instead of "Asian" in general like in the past. There is even an agancy working specifically to bring Japanese actors/actresses to Hollywood. Unfortunately, this article was written in June and did not mention Hiro.
Reading both of them, if the second one is true, it is great to see the tide is slowly changing in Hollywood, so the door is much more open for Asian actors now. I learned a lot about Asian and Japanese actors in Hollywood in reiko's blog article series - how much hard time they have had to fight, so I appreciate this change SO MUCH MORE. (It is a GREAT series, with so much effort by Reiko!! You shoud DEFINITELY read it!!) Of course, it is not because of moral or anything - Asian market is growing as a major power and Hollywood has to please its customers. But so what, I will take it anyway, and with this powerful Hollywood influence over American culture, I hope the general taste of Americans also would get more open for Asian-origin things.
(I just got "Slanted Screen" DVD from Netflix. It was recommended by reiko in this blog - I am looking forward to watching it!)
Time is right for our guy. Thank you, god of movies.
少し前、真田さんを批判するゲンダイのひどい記事がありましたよね。日本のファンの方々は賢明にも全く無視しておられますが、２ちゃんねるで集中砲火を浴びています。これを書いた記者は、8/10にRH3が公開されることを知らないほどのアホだったか、またはこれがヒットして自分の書いた記事が間違いだったことが証明される前に記事を早く出してしまいたかったかどちらかだと思うのですが・・・
このような、他人の成功をやたら嫉妬したり、高い目標に向かってまじめに努力している人を冷笑したりするのは、昔からある日本人の悪いところだと思うのですが、それを丸出しにされてとても悲しい気持ちになりました。
一方で、今朝RinRinさんのご紹介で読んだ読売の記事の「過去の関係記事」の中で、「ハリウッドでは今日本人俳優が不足して困っている」という話がありました。前にもこのブログでご紹介しましたが、日系アメリカ人であるreikoさんは、このところご自分のブログで「ハリウッドにおける日系・アジア系俳優の苦難の歴史」というのをシリーズで書かれており、それを読むと、これまでいかにアジア系がハリウッドで差別され、無視され、偏見にさらされてきたか、ということがよくわかります。（英語ですが、YouTubeのクリップを豊富に引用してあり、とてもすばらしい記事です。ぜひご覧ください！）それが、最近流れが変わって来たというのは、すばらしいことだと思います。もちろん、これは善意でそうなったのではなく、アジアがハリウッドにとって「お客さん」としてますます重要になってきた、というだけの話なのですが、それでもハリウッドがアメリカ人の文化に対して与える影響は大きいので、アジア人やアジアのカルチャーに対してアメリカ人がもっとオープンに接してくれるようになるといいと思います。
真田さんの努力に、時流は味方しています。映画の神様、感謝いたします！
（最初に英語で書いて、それから日本語にすると、なんか直訳調でヘンですよねー・・・われながら・・・済みません、ご容赦を！）
Misty
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