Chow Yun Fat, however, is great at playing the heavy in Chinese films and his portrayal of the Mandarin would be no less terrific, in my humble opinion. After watching Curse of the Golden Flower as many times as I have, I thought Chow playing the Mandarin would be no brainer. He plays regal but ruthless better than any other actor out there. As a performer he carries himself like an Emperor would. People who have never seen one of his movies would be impressed with his talent and that can only add to the excitement of Iron Man 3. Some old man in a bathrobe just doesn't cut it for me. A hero is only as good as the villain he is fighting against and in this case I think the creators didn't think Kingsley's casting all the way through.
This isn't just another movie, it's IRON MAN 3. The main reason we get to enjoy so many superhero movies these days is that Iron Man was well made, earned a ton of dough and was very popular. Suddenly superhero sells in Hollywood. Marvel has been coasting on critical and audience approval for their superhero films and can ill afford a bomb at this point.
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11 comments:
Totally agreeing, much like Peter Sellers in his last flick, 'Fu Manchu'.
Yuck.
Thats why I said earlier that he sounds like on of the CALIFORNIANS from a bad SNL skit
I DO have to pick up that Mandarin figure, sir.. It's from the Toybiz Ironman series from the '90s, correct..?
IRON MAN is a movie property that you can't fuck with in this way. After you struck gold with Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark you can't afford to mess up the entire movie franchise by sluffing off one.
Yes, that figure is from The Iron Man line from the cartoon. He comes with a great helmet that you can't see in the pick.
I won't argue with you that Chow Yun Fat might be better, but Marvel has been name dropping Ben Kingsley for one of their movies for years now. After they went for a younger Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, I figured its either gonna be Mandarin in Iron Man or Vulture in Spider-Man, so this wasn't really a surprise for me.
I guess I'm not peeved at the cross-race casting because I think this interpretation of the Mandarin is supposed to be Chinese in name only, just to sound cool. After all, Ho Yinsen was played by a English actor in the first film. Also, Ben Kingsley is one of those actors like Erick Avari or Cliff Curtis who are hired to play every race.
Thats not a defense, just what I think their line of thinking is, because Ben Kingsley as a bad guy just spells bad news. I was watching "Sneakers" last weekend, and when they revealed him as the villain, I groaned out loud, and it was an absolutely awful performance, that it came very close to ruining such a fun movie.
Well, I'll be the Devil's Advocate and say that Ben Kingsley is a GREAT choice, an INSPIRED choice. The man played Gandhi, for gawd's sake. Cut him some slack.
Ghandi would have gotten his ass kicked my Iron Man is seconds.
Oh, I'm not sure...as noted, he was amazing as Gandhi, and also as Stern in Schindler's List. And his villain in Sneakers was anything but goofy.
I wouldn't go so far as to say his performance in "Sneakers" was goofy, but he played the "Bond Villain" Stereotype so straight that there was no way to take the part seriously. Though the fact that he remained so in character is commendable. I think the writing of that particular character was more at fault than Ben himself.
I think it might just work, special effects will help a lot.
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