The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
Kim Dae-hyun has repeatedly spoken out for Wu Hanzhang on personal social media.
This week, Daniel Dae kim, a Korean-American actor who has starred in popular American dramas such as "Lost" and "Good Doctor," launched a crowdfunding campaign online in hopes of raising $50,000 for him to apply for James Hong, a 91-year-old famous Chinese actor in Hollywood, to apply to leave a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At the end of the four-day fundraising campaign, Kim Dae-hyun successfully raised $55,307, and the goal was successfully achieved. Enthusiasts who donate more than $5,000 will also be given the opportunity to interact and chat online with four Asian-American Hollywood stars, Kim Dae-hyun, Wen Myena, Cheng Ken and Randall Park.
Kim Dae-hyun successfully raised more than $50,000 on the crowdfunding site.
"Hollywood's most-performed actor ever"
The name Wu Hanzhang may sound a little strange, but this kind yellow-skinned face, I think you will have some impression. Since his entry into the industry in the 1950s, he has taken over more than 600 film and television works, including film history classics such as "Chinatown" and "Blade Runner", as well as Hollywood animation films full of Asian elements such as "Kung Fu Panda" and "Mulan"; he is the mysterious man who opened the Chinese with Keno Levis in the new version of "The Day the Earth Stops", and the villain boss in the cult movie "Big Trouble in Little China"; in addition, He has also made cameo appearances in popular American dramas such as Seinfeld and The Big Bang Theory.
The young Wu Hanzhang and the famous Hollywood actress Jane Wyman in the only TV series directed by John Ford, "Bamboo Cross".
Looking back at the cause of Kim Dae-hyun's fundraising campaign, it actually originated from an interview article published on its own website on CNN on August 3, which introduced Wu Hanzhang's more than 70-year-long career as an actor under the title of "He may be the actor who has appeared in hollywood in history". As of July this year, the film data information website imdb showed that Wu Hanzhang had starred in 149 feature films, 32 short films, 469 TV series episodes, and contributed voices to 22 video game works.
However, even so, on Hollywood's famous Walk of Fame, there is no star that belongs to Wu Hanzhang. According to Wu Hanzhang's own interview with CNN, "In a sense, this represents an invisible discrimination in our industry, and they don't think of us Asian actors."
At present, there are more than 26,000 stars on the more than two-kilometer-long Walk of Fame, which greeted more than 10 million tourists from all over the world every year before the epidemic, and can be said to be one of the most famous landmarks in Los Angeles. The Walk of Fame is run by the Hollywood Business Office, a non-governmental organization, and is nominated every March, and the candidates are subject to review, and if they can pass, they can win their own brass five-pointed star on the Walk of Fame the following year. However, the cost of fifty thousand dollars and maintenance costs also need to be paid by the candidates themselves.
Over the years, no one, whether it was the Hollywood business office itself or other Hollywood organizations, never thought of applying for this star for Wu Hanzhang, which made Kim Daehyun, who is also an Asian actor, indignant, which launched this campaign on the crowdfunding website. He also hopes to use this action to win more attention and respect for Asian actors in Hollywood that they deserve.
"Wu Hanzhang is probably one of the most prolific actors hollywood has ever had, and there is no one." Kim Dae-hyun said, "He is the pinnacle of professional actors, and in addition to doing his job, he also spares no effort to help actors of color get more attention." For those of us who are younger, he and his contemporaries of colored actors have contributed a lot. It's time for him to get the honor he deserves. ”
Wu Hanzhang (first from the left) made a cameo appearance in The Legend of Seinfeld.
Asian actors don't lack talent, but they lack opportunities
Wu Hanzhang was born on February 22, 1929 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, usa, to Chinese parents, and the family immigrated to the United States from Hong Kong. When I was a child, in the Chinese medicine shop opened by my father, I would often invite the drama class to perform. "The Chinese washers in Minneapolis have nothing to do on the weekends, and everyone gathers in my herb shop, each of whom sits on a small wooden stool, and watches the opera class invited by San Francisco perform Peking Opera. I was a kid at the time, and I was so fascinated by it that I thought it was a great thing. ”
In this way, Wu Hanzhang became obsessed with acting, but this did not gain the support of his family. "Chinese parents don't want their children to be actors, they want their juniors to do more professional work." In comparison, the actor's line, in their view, belongs to the last stream. It's not even a profession because they feel it's humiliating to show emotions in front of the audience. As a child Chinese, you are taught from an early age to be quiet and obedient. He told CNN reporters.
As a result, in order to satisfy his family, he chose a career path after graduating from high school. After graduating from the University of Southern California's Department of Engineering, Wu became a municipal engineer in Los Angeles and participated in the design and construction of many highway projects. However, in his spare time, he did not give up his dream of being an actor.
In 1950, at the age of 21, Mr. Wu signed up for the TV-based educational show You Bet Your Life, hosted by groucho Marx, one of Hollywood's acclaimed comedy group The Max Brothers. "I imitated Groucho on stage, and it turned out to be very popular, and the number of letters I received from the audience was one of the best in the history of that show." Wu Hanzhang recalled. Soon after, he had his own Hollywood agent, and the opportunity to shoot the scene followed.
Wu's screen debut in 1955's Soldier of Fortune starred Clark Gable and the Chinese actress Glenn known as the "Mambo Girl." "It was an experience I will never forget to be able to act with Clark Gable. Then I joined the Screen Actors Guild and started film after film, only to quit my job as an engineer. Since then, I've basically taken on a dozen plays every year. ”
In the decades since, Wu has worked with Hollywood stars such as John Wayne, William Halton, and Jennifer Jones. However, it is said that it is cooperative, but the role assigned to him is actually all kinds of small supporting roles, and the type is quite fixed. "At that time, the Asian characters in film and television works were mainly for gimmicks. The protagonist simply can't take our turn. Wu Hanzhang said.
What is even more difficult to accept is that in Hollywood of that era, even if there were major Asian roles, the result was often played by white actors dressed up as Asians. This was first done with the great director Griffiths's 1919 silent film Broken Blossoms, after which Paul Mooney and Louise Reiner became a rural Chinese couple in "The good Earth" (1937); Marlon Brando became a Japanese Okinawan in "Teahouse of the August Moon"; and Katherine Hepburn in "Dragon Species" Li became a Chinese rural woman Xiaoyu; John Wayne became a Mongolian Genghis Khan in "The Conqueror" (1956); child actor-turned-Mickey Rooney became the heroine's Japanese neighbor in "Tiffany's Breakfast"; the asian actors on the screens of "Detective Charlie Chen" and "Fu Manchu" who were popular at that time were all white actors.
Wu Hanzhang in Blade Runner.
"Asian characters, as long as they are protagonists, are all played by white people, who tape their eyelids up so that they become thinner and smaller. On the other hand, I can only play some small roles as laundry workers and bullied Chinese. It's really hard to break this stereotype. Wu Hanzhang recalled. In 1962, he got a screenplay directed by Albert Zugsmith, titled The Confessions of an Opium Eater, based on the novel of the same name by the British writer de Quincy. "I read the script and it sucked, the Asian characters were all opium addicts and prostitutes or something. So I started a petition campaign, and we went to the director's office and hoped that he would revise the script and improve the Asian image in the film. As a result, the director and producer were not at all impressed, and the film was filmed as it was and released smoothly.
Confessions of an Opium Addict.
Touched by this, Wu Hanzhang and several Asian-American actors started los Angeles's first purely Asian-American theater troupe, the East West Players. Their first work was to bring Rashomon to the stage. "From there, Hollywood began to notice us. We're not a gimmick in a movie, we're not a perpetually static extra. We rehearse the play ourselves, we play the protagonist ourselves, and we are also professional actors. We deserve everyone's attention. In our troupe, the screenwriters are Asian, the stage design is Asian, and the actors are asian. "For decades, The East and the West Theater Company has provided a stage for a large number of Asian performers. Korean actors John Cho, Landau Park and Kim Dae-hyun, who are now prominent in Hollywood, have all been given the opportunity to perform here in the past.
Relying on the efforts of this batch of Asian actors themselves, coupled with the general awakening of the people brought about by the changes of the times, the situation today is naturally much better than when Wu Hanzhang first entered the industry, for example, the comedy "Picking Gold" created by the Asian team can win the weekend box office championship, Disney's live-action version of "Mulan" with Chinese themes is all picked by Asian actors, and Marvel's superhero movies also take Asians as the protagonist.
However, in Wu Hanzhang's view, there are still many areas where Hollywood needs to improve its treatment of Asians. "Mainstream film and television works are still controlled in the hands of others, suitable for the roles of our Asian actors, or too few and too few, we do not have the opportunity to express ourselves according to our own ideas." There are too many Asian actors, obviously there is no shortage of talent, but there is a lack of opportunities, a lack of roles to play. Just looking at it like this, Ren Caihua was wasted, which is really regrettable. ”
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu