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The Asian Wave: Three Asian Male Superstars in Hollywood

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The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema

Abstract

Three Asian male superstars, Shah Rukh Khan, Chow Yun-Fat, and Lee Byung-Hun, have all attempted to expand beyond their native film industries into the US market. Yet as Celine Parreñas Shimizu notes, there is “a long tradition in Hollywood movies of iconic portrayals of Asian American men [as] rapacious and brutal, pedophiliac, criminal, treacherous and also romantic, and quaint. Sexuality and gender act as forces in the racialization of Asian American men.” This essay looks at the ways in which the receptions of these three stars in the US film industry mirror changing attitudes toward Asian leading men in Hollywood, revealing evolving commercial film trends which in turn relate to global cultural, political, and economic forces.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, USA

    Valerie Soe

Authors
  1. Valerie Soe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Valerie Soe .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park

  2. School of Humanities, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong

    Gina Marchetti

  3. University of Macau, Macau, Singapore

    See Kam Tan

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© 2018 The Author(s)

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Cite this chapter

Soe, V. (2018). The Asian Wave: Three Asian Male Superstars in Hollywood. In: Magnan-Park, A., Marchetti, G., Tan, S. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Asian Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95822-1_23

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