Stuff.

[the_grynne]

Oscar nominated Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi (Babel, The Brothers Bloom) has been cast as the female lead of Guillermo del Toro's monster sci-fi movie Pacific Rim. She will play Mako Mori, a young Japanese pilot of Jaegers, the enormous robotic creatures built to battle strange extraterrestrial creatures attacking earth. Her co-lead is Charlie

Comments

[angstbunny]

Noooooooooooooo, didn't want Fassbender to drop out of Trance, but only because McAvoy is in it too.

I'm still super side eye at Gaiman, to be honest, for his comments regarding Journey to the West, so I'm not really looking forward to seeing how he messes it up, if those comments are going to be reflective of his attitude toward the material (of course, I can't find the damn thing now, but something that sounds a lot like his absolving himself of being a non-Chinese person adapting a culturally significant piece of work by saying how universal it is, I mean, after all, nobody thinks Greek myths are particularly Greek).

[the_grynne]

When the best known version of Journey to the West is a Japanese TV series...I don't see how this can be any worse. I see where you're coming from, but "universal" is very Chinese, from the point of view of a country that's trying to extend its soft power.

[angstbunny]

"Universal" is the pretense of every single culture so it's not a particularly Chinese trait. I don't inherently have a problem with Gaiman doing this at first because I like his work, but he came off very poorly in his justification. He started off well by saying it's a great responsibility but ruined his point by going, oh well it's not very Chinese anyway, it's so universal. Considering how often Chinese things and Chinese characters are un-Chinese-ed in Western entertainment, it urked me to hear it. I hope it was a case of bad context quoting or he just worded himself poorly.

[the_grynne]

I hope Gaiman is intimidated by the project, because he bloody well ought to be, but I don't think that having a Western screenwriter is necessary a hindrance. James Schamus was a writer on both Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Lust, Caution, despite not knowing any Chinese, and while both those films got a mixed reception on the mainland, they're well loved abroad and also by the diaspora, which is the particular brilliance of Ang Lee. I just wish Zhang the producer wasn't so intent on hiring a Western big-name director (apparently he's courting Guillermo del Toro...which, just, NO), because I feel like an Asian director would really do the story better justice.

[angstbunny]

Late reply is late.

No, don't get me wrong. I don't think a Western screenwriter is inherently a bad thing either. I didn't judge Gaiman until he made those facepalm comments, but I'm willing to see that, yeah, perhaps he is intimated by the project and the pressure, and he articulated himself poorly (even writers do that, so I'm not holding up to a super high standard on that count either). I guess I just really want him to prove me wrong.