Virtually everybody agrees that it was bizarre to have an unknown Italian play a Vietnamese. Has anybody suggested, however, that the intention might have been to imply that the girl was of mixed race? The elder sister, you will recall, was determined that Phuong should marry a white man, whose children would then be at least half white.
If, according to your theory, Phượng was of mixed race (and I guess you mean mixed Vnese / Caucasian), setting her up with a white man would create not half, but 3/4 white kids .. no?
It really took me out of the movie to see an Italian lady playing Phượng with a few lines of terrible VNese thrown in ... But I also recall that 10 years later, in that Bond movie that plays in Japan, somehow they cast the most western looking Japanese ladies .. maybe to please western audiences eyes? But the casting fiasko does not stop there, her sister is Algerian and speaks English with a partial German accent (?) and the hostess is (judging by name) Japanese :)
I think they could not find many VNese actresses in Rome in 1958 ... :)
^ Yes, I agree.
Daliah Lavi and the Algerian "Karima" are equally as distracting playing Malaysians in those Conrad movies.
I'm going to disagree and state that I enjoyed Giorgia Moll in that role as she was really good looking in that part.
She was probably cast to play that role because of her dark Mediterranean looks, and they obviously thought she could pull off the look they needed.
This was the times when movies were made that seldom used Asian actors in the staring roles. Not saying it was right but it was right for the times.
shareI think Giorgia Moll did a fine job playing Phuong, but this question of legitimacy is tying everybody up in knots. It doesn't matter what your race/ethnicity is if you can play a part. Besides, I can think of only one Vietnamese actress of that period: France Nuyen. She made her first film, South Pacific, that same year. Her parentage was French-Vietnamese.
shareIt's beyond pathetic to cast an Italian actress to play an authentic Vietnamese beauty. It's ridiculous ! But I guess it was normal back in the day and they got away from it. It was like casting a white actor to play a Chinese in Kung Fu. And they didn't change the title to " Hey, that guy is not Chinese" but kept the name as Kuhg Fu. Sad !
share