I’ve always been embarrassed to admit that I have friends who are a little too into things like the Lord of the Rings, Star Trek or some comic book hero. I’m not knocking any of these people; after all, geeks are human, too. But I have to admit that I do have one guilty pleasure, which I’ve carried over from childhood. And that’s Batman.
I’ve always been a fan of the Dark Knight, though in my defense, it has never been in a geeky, obsessive way. I think I’ve always felt he was cooler than most other comic characters because he was essentially just a regular guy who used his training and wits to fight crime. You shot him and he bled. You’d never see that happening to Superman or the Hulk. At his core, Batman was a dark, messed-up dude. He was a loner whose life was marked by tragedy. There’s something compelling in a twisted way about a man who spent every night hunting criminals in a bat suit to avenge his parents’ murders, which he had witnessed as a child.
You may have heard that Christopher Nolan (Memento) is directing a new film version of the Dark Knight’s escapades entitled Batman Begins, which will hit your local multiplex in summer 2005. Christian Bale will star as the young Batman-in-training with a stellar cast that includes Michael Caine as butler Alfred, Gary Oldman as future Commissioner Gordon and 28 Days Later survivor Cillian Murphy as the evil Scarecrow. That sounds promising enough. But there’s more …
Recent Oscar nominee and The Last Samurai co-star Ken Watanabe will join the cast as another Batman baddie — Ra’s Al Ghul.
If you’re not familiar with the comics, you may be asking, Who? Ra’s Al Ghul may not be as well-known as the Penguin or Catwoman, but believe me when I say he was one of the coolest villains ever to appear in any superhero’s life and, as far as I know, he was not even Asian.
I say as far as I know because it was never really clear what Ra’s Al Ghul was. He had a vaguely exotic and noble air about him, but I don’t remember him ever being identified as Asian or any ethnicity that we may recognize in the real world. But he was an immortal who possessed incredible strength and intelligence, making him both an intellectual and physical equal to Batman.
Unlike other baddies like the Joker or the Riddler, who could be silly as well as scary, Ra’s had a dignity to him that made him seem more threatening. And while his other enemies were trying to do relatively benign things like poison Gotham City’s water supply, Ra’s had bigger goals in mind like the total annihilation of everyone on the planet so he could re-populate Earth with his own perfect human specimens. Now, that’s a badass.
I’m sure part of the reason Watanabe was cast in the role was because of the quiet dignity he possesses. I mean the guy single-handedly brought dignity and weight to the otherwise laughable premise of The Last Samurai.
From what I remember, in the comics, Ra’s had a beautiful daughter named Talia who spent most of her time half-naked (someone please hire Kelly Hu for this, pretty please … ) and fell in love with the Dark Knight. Ra’s put Batman through a series of impossible tests (like scaling Mt. Everest while an army of armed guards tried to stop him) to see if he was deserving of his daughter’s love. Batman passed all the tests, Ra’s deemed him worthy to be his son-in-law, and he wanted the two young lovers to start the new race of superbeings once his plans for global genocide succeeded.
I don’t know how much of this storyline will make it into the movie, but in reminiscing about those comic book plots from my youth, I realize how easily the part could have been cast with some snotty European actor with a suave accent (Udo Kier does look amazingly like the comic book Ra’s). Yes, I’m not forgetting the aforementioned Hu’s role in X2, but to my knowledge this is the first time we will see a major, beloved comic character played by an Asian actor.
I’m not saying this is going to lead to any significant changes in how Hollywood casts these parts. I doubt Rick Yune will be asked to play Superman in the Man of Steel’s next outing or that Lucy Liu will get a chance to don the tiara as Wonder Woman. But what I can say is next summer when Batman Begins hits the theaters, I may just be rooting for the baddie to kick Batman’s ass.
Philip W. Chung is a writer and co-artistic director of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble.