Yeah, once again it's Asian Pacific american heritage month. A friend forwarded an announcement to me about a commemorative program tomorrow at the Ronald Reagan building in DC.
I don't think I could make it all the way down there.
The keynote speaker will be George Takei, best known for his role as Sulu in Star Trek.
I mean, I've seen Takei speak before, a couple times, over the years. I find him okay, better than some, but a little on the stuffy-sounding side.
Talking 'bout Takei reminds me of that other Asian american actor on Star Trek, Voyager, Garrett Wang. What's he been up to? Turns out that he's been doing some film/tv gigs since Star Trek, but I wonder if they've been enough to pay the bills. He probably does other stuff, like theater and star trek conventions, but will he have enough for retirement?
(Well, that's a question for us all.)
But I want to continue talking about Asian American male actors in dramatic media.
This past weekend, I was walking through the tv section of a department store, and noticed a Bruce Lee film being shown. I think it was the Game of Death. I've never seen the whole film from start to finish, so I'm not sure how it goes, and when Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Chuck Norris make their appearances.
The scene being shown was a fight between Bruce and Dan Inosanto. I don't know how the scene was planned, shot and edited, but it seemed kind of stilted to me. It didn't help that much of the vocalizations were horrendously dubbed, adding to the cartoonish feel.
But what drew me into it, besides the martial arts skills on display were the youthful look of the actors. Bruce and Dan still looked young, with smooth, unwrinkled faces.
(I met Inosanto once, when he substituted for my drivers training instructor, one day. That was in the days before he became a martial arts guru. My brother said that Inosanto was his drivers training instructor.)
Posted by raacluse at May 10, 2006 12:12 AMI remember once, as a kid, meeting George Takei at a Star Trek convention, as he walked back to his room, me and a friend literally ran into him. It was pretty cool (Sulu was always my favorite TOS character), even if the hotel manager walking him thought it was odd for two twelve year olds to be running around at two in the morning.
Posted by: Malnurtured Snay at May 10, 2006 01:17 AM
I bet the hotel manager thought you guys were looking for hookers...
Posted by: raacluse at May 11, 2006 03:09 AM