MovieChat Forums > Marco Polo (2007) Discussion > Brian Dennehy

Brian Dennehy

posted 17 years ago by chrismahon2005
22 replies | jump to latest

Hey Brian Dennehy is set to play Kublai Khan a mongol,though was not the mongols there part chinese by then ?,anyway that should be interesting to see.I wonder why they did not get a real asian guy to play the part,i love Brian Dennehy a good strong actor,but weird bit of casting in my opinion.
By the way im not being racist here,but kind of strange to me,you do see this a lot sometimes,hes gonna need a fair bit of make up to make it look right.
I remember the 80s series i loved that as a kid,should be good what ever they do though love stuff like this.

[–] 17 years ago

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[–] chrismahon2005 17 years ago

Thats cool hes a decent actor,was great playing gacy in the film about him(serial killer),but no makeup?,the guys was asian,that seems a bit weird,we shall see i guess.

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[–] chrismahon2005 17 years ago

Yes what a good film that was,so scary what a amazing job dennehy did in that film.

[–] zzbamzz 17 years ago

Nothing but classic yellowface and no different than when whites would put black makeup in "Birth of a Nation."

Racism and discrimination is very much alive in Hollywood and Asians are treated as second and third class citizens much like how Blacks were treated during the earlier years.

Live and don't learn, I always say.

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[–] crappola515 17 years ago

I know. His beard is blond and "hair" black. I love Dennehy, but there are a number of Asian actors who could have pulled off a Kublai Khan. Ken Watanabe, Chow Yun Fat, Roger Yuan, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Vic Mackey: "God creates all men equal. Out of the womb, he starts playing favorites."

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[–] debdav1 17 years ago

This is the worst casting since John Wayne played Ghengis Khan in "The Conquerer."

[–] Grateful11 17 years ago

I can't believe they had Brian Dennehy play Kublai Khan. That pretty much ruins the whole movie for me, what a joke. 40 minutes into and it's off my DVR. The acting by nearly everyone is sub-par at best.

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[–] kho_blanche_noir 17 years ago

I was taken back a little and somewhat bemused, Firstly I thought they've kept a good portrayel, besides the fact they all spoke English, but fair enough otherwise it would be difficult to watch and then when they went in to see the kahn I was expecting an oriental actor playing the role, but I was shocked to see an obviously caucasian actor and just to make it worse they tried to MAKE him look oriental and he's got the strongest American accent ever...I was appalled partially because of the baffling decisions they made or did not make:

one: they don't mind giving minor roles to asian actors but the most prominent figure is played by an American with no attempt what so ever to disguise it, infact it seemed as if it was intended.

two: This is something I'd expect in the 30's not now....

thirdly: The implication that one of the greatest asian person in history is portrayed as an American is not only disrepectful to the history but a blatant continuing attempt by Hollywood to imply greatness is being White and American.

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[–] efa-3 17 years ago

thats bollox, maybe they were not advertising for the role in proper places. Hard to imagine not being to find an english speaking asian actor for the role, must be thousands of them out there eager for work.

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[–] jimjo838 16 years ago

Dennehy's an American actor so he plays the part with an American accent. Should he fake an English accent to seem more Chinese? One thing's for certain; he can't put on a Chinese accent. If he did, the accusations of racism would be flying all over the place (even more than they apparently already are).

[–] 16 years ago

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[–] jimjo838 16 years ago

OK-- point taken. From some of the previous comments it seemed that it was the American accent that people were especially offended by (as if some other type of non-Chinese accent would have been more acceptable). I agree that the casting, and indeed the whole movie, seemed a little strange. Alright, maybe a lot strange.

[–] ContinentalOp 10 years ago

Dennehy's an American actor so he plays the part with an American accent. Should he fake an English accent to seem more Chinese? One thing's for certain; he can't put on a Chinese accent.

Mongols are not Chinese nor did they usually speak any form of Chinese in those days (SOME Chinese Mongols do now) as a first language, they spoke Mongolian, an Altaic language which is only as closely related to Chinese when you ignore some loanwords and Chinese influences on that Language.

I know. His beard is blond and "hair" black. I love Dennehy, but there are a number of Asian actors who could have pulled off a Kublai Khan. Ken Watanabe, Chow Yun Fat, Roger Yuan, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

Most of them would be very miscats, with the least being Ken Watanabe and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as they are at least Altaic (Japanese).

Formerly KingAngantyr