One of the many things direly wrong with last weekend’s horrible THE MUMMY: TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPREROR was the fact that it was yet another example of Hollywood’s inept mishandling of Asian movie stars. Watching Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh trod their way through the film just kept on breaking my heart, because they can do so much better, and - more importantly - deserve so much better.
Instead they, and many other successful Asian action stars (Jackie Chan, especially) are usually reduced to being embarrassing sidekicks (either to other characters, the narrative, or to special effects) or their martial art skills are exploited for the exotic novelty their five minutes of on-screen fighting present to North American audiences (”Oh, look, how neat. It’s martial arts!”).
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Jack Ryan Returns
Not satisfied with having spear-headed one successful franchise (SPIDER-MAN), Sam Raimi is in negotiations with Paramount Pictures to revive the Jack Ryan franchise, inspired by the Tom Clancy’s novels. Previous installments included THE HUNT FOR THE RED OCTOBER (1990) with Alec Baldwin playing the character, PATRIOT GAMES (1992) and CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER (1994), featuring Harrison Ford in the role, and THE SUM OF ALL FEARS (2002) with Ben Affleck. However, according to Variety, the intention this time around is to not only feature a younger, more in-training Jack Ryan, but to possibly set the films in the present. It hasn’t been made clear whether new films would be based on existing Clancy novels, or would be original stories created specifically for the films. Regardless, it’s great to see Raimi branching out finally from the SPIDER-MAN films, and if all goes according to plan - and to how Paramount wants it - we may see another Ryan installment as soon as 2010.
Source: Variety.
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