I realise there was a subtext of cultural sterotypes and cultural ignorance but i found the stereotypical charcters to be somewhat dated.
Well of course they were dated! The stage play opened in 1959 and the movie released in 1961.
It's amazing to look back only half a century on the depth of our ignorance of other cultures in the world. The characters may have been stereotypical, but they were uncomfortably accurate nonetheless. At that time we still knew almost as little about Japan, its people, and their culture and customs as did Gilbert and Sullivan when they wrote
"The Mikado". In a word, next to nothing.
Back then far too many Americans traveling abroad expected everyone they met to speak English to them.
We may have come a long way, but I think we've still got a way to go toward understanding each other.
Granted, today they would have HAD to cast an Asian actor as Mr. Asano.
Granted, too, this was not Mr. Guinness most convincing accent and makeup.
However, even with that handicap, I do think he was still able to convey the emotions and personality that was needed for the character.
BTW: Check out Peter Seller's portrayal of Inspector Sidney Wang in
"Murder By Death" (1976). It's an all-star cast doing a wonderful spoof of all the old
film noir detectives of the 1930s and 40s. Seller's Sidney Wang character was a spoof on Charlie Chan. (It wasn't until much later that Chan was played by an Asian actor, up to that time he'd always been played by a Caucasian.) And in that movie, Alec Guinness played the blind butler.
Some of our greatest catastrophes have been caused by people talking, and some by people not talking.
— Stephen Hawking
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I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved.
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