The idea came to me when I found out Hollywood was re-making ‘AKIRA’, as well as other properties such as ‘Ghost in the Shell’ and ‘Battle Angel Alita’.  I figured they were going to cast the main roles as non-Asian, so, being an Asian actor I made it my personal bid to the producers and director for me to play a part in the film; using our little ‘teaser’ to prove that the major roles can be just as compelling and appealing being played by Asian Americans as much as Caucasian Americans to an American audience.

For the past few months, I’ve been corresponding back and forth with the director, Ruairi Robinson.  In the last email I sent to him, I included my little ‘homage’.  I have yet to hear back from him.

Hopefully it will get their attention. Let me know your thoughts on the matter as I am interested in hearing them.

Here are the links:
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcRXbi-Bf-Q
Myspace TV: http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=33531798

Sincerely,
JAE CHAE
http://www.myspace.com/heyjae[/img]

Well, you sure can look evil and intense enough to play any of the leads!
There are definitely worse ways to show people you are seriously interested in being part of this film.

Having said that, my guess would be the producers want to get the life-action remake as far removed from its Asian roots as possible. A lot of people dislike anime especially for the stereotypes which Akira helped set up, so if the producers plan on getting that part of the audience in seats for a good old-fashioned action-scifi movie, the last thing they’ll want to do is cast an Asian-looking actor.
If that is the case your ethnicity WILL work against your chances to be cast.

The Wachowskis didn’t use any Asian actors for the first Matrix movie, my guess is for those very same reasons… Although it became hip to use them in the sequels once the diehard fanbase had developed, and the success of the first one gave the Wachowskis more leverage in their choices.

But you probably know a lot more about this specific production than I do, so please tell me: are they at all thinking about targeting audiences who know the source materials? Will this movie be referred to in advertising as “the real-life Akira” or will that just be a tiny detail only us moviegeeks and otaku know?


And do they need people with a Dutch accent (hey, asking never hurts)?

In their first 2 movies the Wachowski bros actually used two half asians (Jennifer Tilly - Bound and Keanu Reeves - Matrix trilogy) in leading roles no less

but other than that this Akira movie as most of these anime to film adaptations will more than likely will be devoid of any Asian presence other than their original incarnations, it would be nice to see them do a faithful representation in their casting. We’ll be lucky if they cast one Asian actor in a leading role to be honest

Hi, first time poster.

Hollywood’s habit of disregarding actors simply based on their race for roles that could be for anybody is the most dispicable aspect of the business to me. This is 2008, yet they think the audience wouldn’t accept an Asian or some other minorities in a significant role. I admire what you are doing, but I have no hope for this film if they are taking a very Japanese story and Americanizing it, taking out so much of what made it interesting in the first place and overproducing it until it is normal mainstream vanilla.

If they are counting on the built-in audience to support it, anime fans could see them disregarding the Japanese aspect of it and won’t turn out(Speed Racer). If this ever comes out, it’ll most likely flop bad as I can’t see a mainstream audience really embracing Akira either, and that would justify their actions.