Keye Luke or Philip Ahn could have played Fix's part and Richard Loo could have played Kroeger's part. Why were they not cast?
The simple fact is that in that era, and through the 60s at least, it was common practice to give western (white) actors and actresses most major "Oriental" parts, either because they wanted stars (there were no real Asian
stars, as opposed to actors) or because it was believed western audiences would more easily identify with major Asian characters (like Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto) if they were played by western actors (Sidney Toler or Peter Lorre).
There was also a racial/sexual component: normally an Asian male character could not have a romantic link to a western woman character unless that male was played by a white man, as for example Ricardo Montalban playing a Japanese in
Sayonara (1957). On the other hand, a white male in love with an actual Chinese female was considered "exotic" and was permissible, though even there white actresses were sometimes cast as Asians; it also depended on the prominence of the role.
Of course, it can also be argued that this is
acting, and that factors like race, color, ethnicity, even sex, shouldn't play a part in deciding who should play a part.
Iago in
Othello is a black character, yet for most of the past 400 years has been played by white actors in make-up. Should Laurence Olivier have been banned from playing Iago because he, Olivier, was white? Actors of Italian descent and the Catholic faith have played Jews and Arabs. Japanese and Chinese films have sometimes turned the tables and had western characters played by Chinese or Japanese in make-up.
Even among what are today called "Asians" (a geographic, not ethnic, term, and hence almost meaningless as it's generally used), Koreans and Chinese have played Japanese, Filipinos Thais, and so on. In
Blood Alley the role of Mr. Tack, the ship's engineer, was played by a Japanese-American, Henry Nakamura. But I suppose if white actors can play white characters of different and unrelated ethnicities, then Asian actors of one nationality can play Asians of other nationalities. Philip Ahn was a Korean, yet mostly played either Chinese or Japanese; should he have been prevented from acting such roles simply because there is not the slightest ethnic, cultural or linguistic connection between Koreans and either Chinese or Japanese (or between Japanese and Chinese, for that matter)?
Even women characters have been played by men in films or theater productions of many countries, though this seldom happens any more (although it did happen in
the Year of Living Dangerously, in which Linda Hunt played a male character, Billy Kwan, and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for it).
The point being, if all acting had to be done by actors actually of the same race, sex, color, ethnicity or nationality of the characters to be played, no performer would be doing very much work. Casting should be a matter of taste, sensitivity and style, but also of who can do the best job. Cross-ethnic acting can be done well or badly; there's no rule, and there shouldn't be. Even the most "politically correct" casting agents would find it impossible to cast each role with an actor of the exact ethnicity or related factors of that character.
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