MovieChat Forums > Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist (2005) Discussion > Why is Cheche, one of the villagers, Fil...

Why is Cheche, one of the villagers, Filipino?

posted 18 years ago by john_ccy
4 replies | jump to latest

***May Contain Minor Spoilers***

So, I just finished watching the movie and one bizarre incongruity that I noticed is why one of the villagers in the middle of Africa is played by a Filipino actor and is not portrayed as black, when all the other villagers are black? Not only is the actor Filipino in real life but he clearly looks Filipino in the scenes where he's not posessed. Especially in the last scene in the movie, when Cheche was helping to fold the bed and looks normal, you can see that he has straight black hair and looks Filipino. Anyway, I was just wondering since I thought it was odd.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] FightingWesterner 10 years ago

Though not explicitly referred to, along with his deformities, the villagers believe that Cheche is evil due to his being mixed-race, possibly a rape by a white soldier.

I think a Filipino being cast as Cheche was a way of accenting the character's "otherness" in a way that a half-white/half-black actor might not be able to convey.

[–] bastasch8647 10 years ago

Good point - he was deformed, an outcast, "touched" by bad fortune ... so I never gave a thought to the fact that he didn't look very "black"...

[–] vicky_lc2001 (1907) 6 years ago

I agree he does not look like the other villagers and wondered why they hired him? His skin is considerably lighter than the rest and he has straight black hair. I don't think he looked Filipino though with all that thick brow ridge makeup and false teeth.