Jet Li's "The Warlords" - 6/29/10

[drobswim13]

Originally Posted by Gannet

Sorry pal, Kaneshiro's effeminate Mandarin accent kills about any role he does where he's not playing an effeminate Taiwanese guy. Chinese actors generally have poor control of accents but that does lend to the greater complexity of Chinese dialects when compared to English.

To put this into perspective, Kaneshiro's Mandarin is as far from the standard Mandarin accent expected in Chinese historical dramas as Christoph Waltz's English in Inglourious Basterds is from Tom Brokaw. Possibly even further as he typically feminizes any character he plays. Him playing Zhuge Liang would be like Robert Pattinson playing General Patton. He was one of many many miscasts in Red Cliff.

I'm pretty sure you have brought this up many times before, but honestly, just lay off of it. There are some great Chinese actors out there that do a very good job. I think Andy Lau, for also being a singer, is a very good actor. I'm also to partial to Simon Yam, Maggie Cheung, and, of course, the late Anita Mui. Maybe Kaneshiro was a little miscast since I think he grew up in Taiwan and that dialect is quite different, but I also don't think that you can brand all Chinese actors as inadequate.