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Asians Whited Out in Bond

SPOILER ALERT: The following column reveals major plot points from Die Another Day.

The James Bond films have featured Asian characters with some regularity over the course of the past twenty years. Sometimes as villains (Harold Sakata’s Oddjob), allies (Soon-Tek Oh’s Lt. Hip), love interests (Aki in You Only Live Twice) and in the last Bond film as both love interest and kick-ass partner (the amazing Michelle Yeoh). The latest Bond movie, Die Another Day, continues this tradition as we find Bond in North Korea battling Colonel Moon and Zao — two evil North Koreans intent on reunifying the two Koreas at any cost.

Even before its release there was already grumbling from some Asian Pacific Americans about the portrayal of the North Koreans in the film. The response from Korea has also largely been unfavorable. Aside from what Koreans feel is a misrepresentation of the North/South Korea situation, there has also been an outcry about some instances of cultural insensitivity (one scene that has stirred controversy has Bond and Halle Berry’s Jinx making love in a Buddhist temple).

Having seen the film, I think these positions have some merit. Yes, the villains are once again bad Asians out for world domination. Yes, it’s once again the white hero who saves the Asians from themselves. And if you know anything about Buddhism you would understand why the aforementioned scene in the temple would be offensive. Most annoying of all, whenever any of the characters spoke Korean, they mangled the language so badly it was beyond laughable.

But I’m actually not interested in talking about the film in these terms. The lack of “positive” images of Asians from Hollywood is nothing new and I’m not sure if I can offer a fresh perspective on that issue. Besides, this is a James Bond movie, and James Bond movies have a long tradition of “exotic” locales and bad guys. I didn’t find the North Koreans any more or less offensive than the usual crop of Bond villains (and I have to admit that I thought Rick Yune’s Zao was a pretty fun character as far as Bond baddies go) Die Another Day is probably one of the most entertaining of the series, at least since Sean Connery hung up his vodka martini to dry.

But there was one thing about the film that did bother me. In Die Another Day, we have a major Asian character (Colonel Moon) and what happens? He is, for the most part, played by a white guy. That’s right — Brit actor Tobey Stephens plays the role of Colonel Moon. In the opening sequence, Bond thinks he kills Moon (played by Will Yun Lee at this point), but what he doesn’t know is that the clever Moon has survived and travels to Cuba to have a “race change” operation and is re-born as the very white and very British Stephens (who in real life is the son of acting legend Maggie Smith). Now with a new face and race, Moon assumes a different identity and proceeds with his plan to forcibly re-unite the two Koreas.

I know this is James Bond and the last thing you should expect is hard-core realism, but even within the series’ fantasy world, the race change thing stretches credibility and I don’t think the dramatic possibilities inherent in such a set-up are ever fully utilized (think of all the witty bits and lines you can create around a white guy who’s really Asian underneath). You never get the sense that the filmmakers are really having any fun with this concept, like they did in an earlier Bond movie You Only Live Twice where Connery’s Bond goes to Japan and transforms himself into a Japanese man. That film is definitely more un-PC than anything in Die Another Day, yet I didn’t find it offensive because I felt the filmmakers were in on the joke. For example, seeing Sean Connery in a kimono and “yellow face” makeup, trying to blend in while towering over the other Japanese around him and clearly standing out — that’s part of the fun.

Die Another Day treats its race changing plot more seriously, without the tongue-in-cheek quality inherent in You Only Live Twice. Maybe that’s to be expected in our more PC times. There’s no yellow face makeup this time, no kimonos, nothing overtly offensive in anyway. What we’re left with is just a potentially clever plot device that doesn’t add up to much.

Maybe what bothers me is the fact that this may arguably be the most prominent Asian male role in any Hollywood movie all year (if you don’t count Jackie Chan in The Tuxedo) and it’s not even played by an Asian actor. Which begs the question — Hollywood may no longer hire white actors to play Asian characters with their eyes taped back, buck teeth inserted and skin colored yellow, but is this new version of “yellow face” any different?

Philip W. Chung is the co-artistic director of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble, an L.A.-based Asian Pacific American theatre company. He will write and direct the upcoming APA horror film Children in the Mirror. Visit www.childreninthemirror.com for more information.