Asian representation in Hollywood is experiencing a golden age with ‘Avatar’, ‘Shogun’ and ‘The 3 Body Problem’ | Pop & Art

They all have casts made up mostly of Asian actors, they star and have showrunners (producers who create, write and direct the work) of the same origin and are considered major bets for their respective studios (two from Netflix, one from Disney and one from HBO).

South Korean actor Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, from “Avatar”, celebrates the good phase.

“It’s not just representation in front of the camera, but behind it as well. And there’s an attention to detail and a real desire for authenticity, for life experience, and for doing it the right way,” he says in an interview with g1.

“It’s not someone from outside the cultures telling these stories, but someone from the inside, who wants to develop these worlds in the appropriate way. This is more than a fad. It’s a real movement.”

If these examples are not enough, a study by the Norman Lear Center and the NGO Gold House released in 2023 can help. By analyzing one hundred of the main films and series on video platforms, the research points to a growth in the number of important roles played by Asians of 3% to 16% between 2007 and 2022.

More than that, the analysis also says that these characters increasingly fit less and less into stereotypes such as “the foreigner” or “the tragic hero”.

“It’s cool to see these clear markers of progress. You can’t say we’re there yet, there’s still a long way to go, but these are positive steps,” says South Korean Daniel Dae Kim, who plays the big villain in ” Avatar.”

“Both ‘Shogun’ and ‘Avatar’ have had previous adaptations. The two current versions are direct reflections of the times we live in. You can see the differences from beginning to end in both cases.”

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Since then, Hollywood has started to look at the group with different eyes. Films like “Minari” (2020) and “The White Tiger” (2021) were critically successful. Others, like “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”, won over the public.

“Everything Everywhere at Once” (2022), of course, hits both targets.

There are other factors too, of course. With increasingly inflated budgets, studios are increasingly dependent on “foreign” revenue – as they call box offices outside the United States and Canada.

To attract markets like China, then, producers open their casts to characters who look less like the standard American or European.

“Now it doesn’t feel like the environment it was when I started, not at all. You know, I have an 8-year-old son. For the first time, I can see him seeing himself in the things he watches,” says American actor Ken Leung, also from “Avatar”, son of Chinese parents.

“On Halloween, he doesn’t have to dress up as a character played by a white guy. He can be a character played by an Asian guy. That, to me, is everything.”

Among Hollywood series in recent years, Asian participation has become increasingly notable. Adapted from a best-seller by British author James Clavell, “Shogun” not only has a co-showrunner from a Japanese family, Rachel Kondo, but also enlisted its big star as one of the executive producers.

“Sometimes there are misunderstandings with our culture. Or some audiences love stereotypical Japanese characters or habits, things like that. But in the 21st century, I wanted to fix all that for our generation,” says actor Sanada Hiroyuki, who made a point of participate in efforts to ensure the authenticity of production.

“I tried to correct our culture in every film or TV series, but I felt the limits of saying something as an actor. That’s why, this time, I have the title of producer. It means a lot to me.”

Well received by the public and critics, “Shogun” is definitely part of a movement. “Avatar” is the actor’s version of the Nickelodeon cartoon with strong inspiration from Asian and indigenous cultures.

In “The Sympathizer,” celebrated South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-Wook (“Oldboy”) adapts the best-selling novel of the same name by Vietnamese American Viet Thanh Nguyen.

To make “The 3-Body Problem”, based on the literary success of Chinese author Liu Cixin, the “Game of Thrones” duo David Benioff and DB Weiss not only called on Alexander Woo (“True Blood”) as co-showrunner, but kept a large part of the Asian cast – even after giving the story a more global setting.

“It’s been fantastic to see people getting opportunities on these shows. That element, the authenticity of getting it right by allowing Asians to be protagonists in their own stories in their own cultures, is really important,” says British actor Benedict Wong. Son of immigrants from Hong Kong, he plays one of the most striking characters in science fiction.

For a new generation of actors, this increase in interesting roles also has another meaning.

“I have so many friends who are also Asian and mixed-race actors. There’s this feeling that I don’t need to be so competitive with them, that we can all be successful,” says Lizzy Yu. At 21, she is still in her third role, as Princess Azula in “Avatar.”

“You can be happy for each other,” says Leung.

“This, we can finally feel that this is no longer a big competition where there is only one winner. It’s really wonderful.”