What's with the accent?


What pisses me off about this movie is that, every "Japanese" character in this movie speaks ENGLISH with stereotype Asian immigrant accent. And the accent is not even close to being Japanese immigrant in the US accent; it resembles more of Chinese immigrant in the US accent. In my opinion, the characters in this movie should speak, umm...JAPANESE, with English subtitles shown. Because my hunch tells me that Japanese people speak Japanese, rather than speaking "FOB (Fresh-Off-the-Boat)" English in their homeland! I understand many characters in this film are Chinese. But shouldn't they at least attempt to hire actual Japanese actors/actresses? I just couldn't get passed the accent while watching first 20 minutes of the movie. So I got annoyed and pressed that off button on my clicker. I understand Hollywood wants to convenient audience when using English in films, and I have no problem with English being used in foreign settings in proper manner, such as 'Amadeus'. In 'Amadeus', people actually spoke British English, rather than speaking in German-English accent. So why is it that when it comes to Asians speaking in Hollywood films, they are portrayed as people who cannot speak English (whether it's British-English or American-English) like the British or the Americans? Maybe the director of this movie should take a trip to Japan and see how they speak to one another. Maybe then he will realize, Japanese (in Japan or In the US) don't sound anything like they were portrayed in this movie.

reply

rofl i understand were everyone is coming from but i don't understand going over and over and over with it.....what if us in the Caribbean (i am from Trinidad, wonder if we know where that is) complained every time Americans attempt to do a very bad representation of a Caribbean accent? in fact not only is the accent bad, but apparent people seem to think that the entire Caribbean ends at Jamaica so we all say things like "ire man" and have dreds......rofl
its a movie, for entertainment.....at least that's how i see it.

reply

Um, I know I'm a little late to the argument, but you know these non English speaking actress learned to speak English for the film phonetically right? Their accents weren't faked

reply

It worked well for the movie. Didn't know about the book though.

reply