MovieChat Forums > Genghis Khan (1965) Discussion > And so Genghis Khan freed China from Cau...

And so Genghis Khan freed China from Caucasian rule...

posted 15 years ago by Skye_Reynolds
6 replies | jump to latest

800 years later, the Morley family has yet to forgive him.

Seriously though, that has to be the whitest Emperor of China I have ever seen. Robert Morley didn't put any effort at all into disguising his appearance. Politically incorrect (arguably even racist) though it may be, James Mason at least attempted to imitate Asiatic facial features for his role as Kam Ling. With Morley, however, there was denying his whiteness. I'm Scott-Irish with Native American roots. I look white. I am white. And if I were able to convince someone that I were Hispanic or Mid-Eastern, there would still be no arguing that the Emperor of China was anything other than Caucasian. Seriously though, I think John Wayne's Temujin from The Conqueror was more convince in that regard.

Even taking into consideration that all of the other actors where of English, Egyptian, or Roman descent, he really stood out.
Still a fun character though.

"Take it away. Not only is this map inaccurate, it's also unartistic."

[–] mrssalina 15 years ago

What was with Genghis Khan having an AMERICAN wife?!

This movie was a comedy not a drama.

[–] otter 15 years ago

Seriously, were there ANY Chinese actors in the whole film? Because while I admit I wasn't paying very close attention, I didn't see a single one. All the "Chinese", male and female, seemed to be played by white people in bad makeup. (I suppose once they'd cast Morley and Mason, they didn't want them to look bad, so they surrounded them with more whites in "yellowface".)

Which is ludicrous, even back then California was full of Chinese and Chinese-American people. When Mason wanted to work on his accent he could have listened to some of them, rather than imitating the white guy who played Charlie Chan.

PS: To the poster above... according to the one book I've read on the subject, Genghis Khan and his wife were white.

* * * FedEx just took NINE days to send me an "overnight" package. * * *

[–] Skye_Reynolds 15 years ago

Chin Yu (Susanne Hsiao), the girl promised as a bride to the man who gathered the most soldiers, was of Asian descent. Pretty much everyone else in China was white though.

Really though, even if Hollywood had to be ethnocentric and cast white actors in the principal roles, there's no reason the extras couldn't have made use of California's large Asian-American population for authenticity's sake.

[–] chris776 15 years ago

Note...the film was shot in Yugoslavia, not L.A. .....(thus the lack of real Asians.....?)

[–] Cademan 14 years ago

This movie is ridiculous. If you don't look Asian, don't portray an Asian.

-C

[–] jameselliot-1 14 years ago

It was what it was, a product of the time. For many decades, film producers in many countries cast whites as Asians in varying degrees of make-up (Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto.). That was the practice, as absurd as it was, but so is racial and religious inequality ridiculous.