He’s in every action movie — but not for
long: Meet the Expendable Asian Crewmember
From "Godzilla" to "X-Men" to "Total
Recall," why does every blockbuster need a single Asian guy to kill off?
Fans of the original “Star Trek” television series, which aired from
1966 to 1969, are familiar with the old trope of the expendable Asian
crewmember. Every week, one or two unlucky marginal characters, wearing
the red shirt of a Security Officer, would join a landing party that
usually consisted of Captain James Kirk, First Officer Spock, and Dr.
Leonard “Bones” McCoy from the starship USS Enterprise. The trio would
beam down to the planet’s surface along with the Expendable Crewmember –
who would promptly get killed off by a space monster/mysterious
sentient cloud/primitive hostiles. The Expendable Crewmember became such
a routine part of the storyline that it was spoofed on the animated
television show “Family Guy,” and became a running joke in the 1999 film
“Galaxy Quest,” in which Sam Rockwell’s character, “Crewman no. 6,” is a
nervous wreck named Guy, so forgettable to everyone that even he knows
he’s doomed to die.
As little kid, I found it a bit odd that the
Klingons always missed Kirk and hit the guy in the red shirt standing
next to him. And as I got older, I couldn’t help but notice two strange
trends beginning to pop up in Hollywood summer blockbusters: 1) Random
storylines would detour to someplace in Asia for no particularly good
reason, and 2) One useless Asian character – only one – would show up
and stick around just long enough to make a vague impression as a
villain. Then he or she would die at the hands of the good (white) guys,
who would then march off victoriously into the sunset.
Now, it
has been pointed out to me that the business of killing off villains is
an equal-opportunity plot device, and Asian people are not being singled
out for horrible deaths. Which is true. It’s long been the case that
Hollywood casts ethnic minorities as bad guys so their heads can be
blasted off. In horror films, there is also the bimbo rule, which
requires hot blondes to get killed off first. This is neither racist nor
sexist (see no. 7 on this list, John Cho, hot blond), but the norm.
The
Expendable Asian Crewmember is different from the phenomenon known as
the “Asian sidekick,” whose ranks include Cato in the “Pink Panther”
film series from the ’60s and ’70s and remade in 2006; Kato in the
“Green Hornet” television series from the ’60s, remade as a film in
2011; Mr. Miyagi in “The Karate Kid,” 1984, remade and moved from
California to China, 2010; and the mutant Yukio in ”The Wolverine,”
2013. But the vast majority of blockbuster film franchises have no Asian
characters in them at all. In general, both New York City and The
Future are curiously free of Asians except for Maggie Q, whose
time-traveling powers enable her to pop up briefly in “Divergent,” 2014.
There are so few Asians in the galaxy inhabited by Star Wars that a
hilarious blog,
“You Offend Me You Offend My Family,” has scoured the entire franchise
for signs of Asian life. The results were: one rebel officer, and a
dubious claim that Admiral Ackbar, fearless cephalopod leader of the
Rebellion, was “Asian-like.”
Which brings me to the 2013 “Star
Trek” reboot, with Zoe Saldana as Lt. Uhura and John Cho as Lt. Sulu,
plus loads of “Asian-like” aliens, including Vulcans. When the most
diverse cast in a Hollywood summer blockbuster happens to be based on a
television show that debuted a half century ago, it’s better to be the
Expendable (Asian) Crewmember than not be allowed on board at all. But
I’m hoping it won’t be another 50 years before Mr. Sulu not only takes
the helm but gets his own ship – and can star in his own film.
Here is a mere sampling of the Expendable Asian Crewmembers I’ve spotted over the years:
“X-Men 2: X-Men United,”
2003. Yuriko. The perfectly coiffed, impeccably manicured and silent
assistant to evil mastermind Stryker, Yuriko turns out to be a
super-villain called Lady Deathstrike whose abilities closely parallel
those possessed by the Wolverine. Wolverine kills her by injecting her
with the rare metal adamantium in its liquid form.
“X-Men 3: The Last Stand,”
2006. Kid Omega. As the Mutant Brotherhood organizes against humans,
Kid Omega becomes one of Magneto’s new recruits. Played by Ken Leung, he
can project spikes out all over his body in the manner of an angry
porcupine. He dies in a blast of psychokinetic energy unleashed by the
super-mutant, Jean Grey/Phoenix.
“Mission Impossible III,”
2006. Zhen Lei. Played by Maggie Q, this femme fatale joins the
“Impossible Mission Force,” experiences a staged death, and disappears
from the story. The fact that she is Chinese does not explain why the
action relocates to Shanghai as opposed to, say, Southern California,
which is also inhabited by white heroes plus a few Chinese people eating
noodles.
“Live Free or Die Hard,” 2007. Mai Lin.
Once again played by Maggie Q, Mai Lin is a cyber-terrorist with
nefarious plans that vaguely involve computer hacking. Bruce Willis
blames her for the awful script and throws her down an elevator shaft.
“The Dark Knight,” 2008.
Lau. Played by Chin Han, Lau is a mob accountant who hides the mob’s
money and flees to Hong Kong for the express purpose of getting Batman
to Asia for an extended tourist commercial involving many tall, sleek
skyscrapers. Batman brings Lau back to the U.S., where he is killed by
the Joker.
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” 2009. Agent Zero. A mutant expert marksman, Agent Zero, played by ethnic Korean actor Daniel Henney, not
only looks fine in a tailored black suit, he has better hair than
Wolverine. After many tries, Wolverine finally succeeds in mussing his
rival’s hair by downing his helicopter and blowing it up.
“Total Recall”
(remake), 2010. Bob McClane. Played by John Cho, better known as Lt.
Sulu from the “Star Trek” reboot, Bob gets killed off when he stupidly
asks secret agent Doug Quaid about his feelings. This taboo question
prompts a police raid that results in everybody except Quaid getting
shot.
“Pacific Rim,” 2013. My friend Minsoo
Kang, who is an expert on the history of automatons, told me that not
one but “two Chinese robot operators” show up and get crushed when
monsters mash their robots. (They die at the same time and don’t have
names, so I will count them as one.) Not only does this film have a
female lead played by Japanese actress Rinko Kikuchi, but it’s set in
Hong Kong, which gets smashed by machine-monsters. This film didn’t do
very well in the U.S. but did extremely well in Asia (e.g., China, Korea
and Japan). As summed up by Forbes, Pacific Rim was “the rare English-language film in history to cross $400 million while barely crossing $100 million domestic.”
“Red 2,”
2013. Han Cho-Bai. He is an international assassin sent to kill retired
black-ops CIA agent Frank Moses. Moses is played by Bruce Willis, so
you know he doesn’t get killed off. Neither does Han Cho-Bai (played by
Korean actor Lee Byung-Hun), because he’s a red herring who is really a
disguised sidekick. Though I enjoyed the display of his martial arts
skills, he’s got no business being in this film except to sell tickets.
It made nearly twice as much in foreign receipts as it did in the U.S.,
and the bulk of those tickets were sold in Japan and South Korea. Could
there be a theme developing here? Why, yes! And it leads directly to…
“Godzilla”
(remake), 2014. Dr. Serizawa. Played by the legendary Ken Watanabe, the
Serizawa character appears in the 1954 version set in Japan, where he
unexpectedly dies. Crucially, the original Godzilla hit U.S. theaters
around the same time as the first wave of Asian immigrants, in the
aftermath of WWII and the Korean War. Sixty years later, the newer,
sexier version of the giant lizard suggests that Godzilla is a strong,
charismatic, assimilated Asian-American who wants his own starring role
in a summer blockbuster without so much goofy metrosexual makeup.
And just as some of the funniest Internet memes focus on the giant
lizard’s new Hollywood look,
it’s not a done deal that Serizawa’s character gets killed off this
time around, even if he is the only Asian character with a name, thus
adhering to the one-Asian rule. I guess you could call that progress.
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