I’m from the U.S., suburban kid who watched plenty of Hollywood movies throughout my time. Going into it any half intelligent boy girl, man woman knows what they take to see with a grain of salt. Then again, from the Asian audience perspective having an influx of Hollywood movies, shaped by completely different culture can and should illicit some sort of resistance or informed objection to what they are being presented with.

But people, is Pacific Rim really a case study for cultural understandings of two peoples? Maybe? I guess if you are the kind of people that invests their time and attention to a Hollywood film whose sole purpose was to create a nerdgasm for a generation that loves cgi robot battles.

What those outside the US, or better yet those who aren’t familiar with Hollywood themes and symbolism really buy way more into what they are seeing than part of the American public I grew up in. I live in New Jersey, went to college with fellow Asian students of all different nationalities, and my perception of who they are, what their culture is about dissolves the moment I hear the person speak in class or have a conversation.

You people, smart people need to invest your attention and intelligence in more fruitful debates and themes beyond pacific rim. The question to ask is are you really interested in understandin why things are the way they are in these films, or is it a platform for rabble for people who like to rabble.

Can you say the same about the US?

Also, the recent movie with Christian Bale (Flowers of War) had him as the hero and the main lead. There are many positive images of foreigners in Chinese films. Way more than what Hollywood puts in.

Anyway, I totally agree with the author. I’m so sick of these stereotypical movies. Hopefully with China’s market growing, the audience will also get sick of these overused portrayals and demand something better.

Besides, its just a movie. The audience is creating issues where there probably aren’t any issues! The Chinese pilots are TRIPLETS!!!

Get over it.

2. Wrt Hannibal Chau, Del Toro’s intentions were a) give the role to his buddy who can play comedy and b) use him as a contrast to the Kaiju so that audiences would be able to suspend their disbelief about the Kaiju. http://io9.com/you-dont-know-squat-about-pacific-rim-747018098. The part was never meant to pander to Chinese audiences, just Hellboy fans.

3. Del Toro, as a Mexican, probably has very different ideas about an immigration wall compared to the rest of Hollywood.

4. As a Chinese woman, I think Mako works on 2 levels. Either negatively on the level that the film feeds into stereotypes about submissive emotional Asian women or she works positively on the level that she defies the other common stereotype, ie grafting male machismo characteristics onto a woman means she is equal but only by goalposts defined by men. Perhaps its worth our while to use the discussion around this movie to redefine those goalposts and argue that women should not have to fit into either extreme in order to be considered “strong”.

Here’s some other things that are worth bringing up about the lack of ethnic diversity.

Clifton Collins Jr, who is Hispanic by descent, plays a Chinese American. Whut?
The one major region in the Pacific Rim not represented is Latin America. In a movie by a Mexican director. Whut?

I’m used to hollywood asians being retards, so my expectations were already very low.

But as a fan of giant monsters and robots, I see Pacific Rim as something very special and worth watching. The retarded asian tropes of hollywood are outweighed by Pacific Rim being an ambassader of a genre that’s little seen in the US. But yes, the Soviet jaegers didn’t do shit and I’m already working on my own script hahah.

Also that Japanese girl is not attractive by Asian standards, and all it really gets Asians to say is “man, Americans have WEIRD taste in women!”