Looking for East Asian actor recs

[swan_tower]

I’m trying to get a more solid image of a character in my mind, which is not a thing I’m very good at; it goes better when I have a casting to look at and then verbalize. But I’ve had to cast a bunch of East Asian male characters lately (mostly for my L5R game), and my brain keeps going back to the same well of possibilities, which is starting to run a little dry. And so I turn to you, the internets, and ask: please share with me names and pictures of East Asian actors or other public figures you especially like! Looking for somebody roughly in their twenties or thirties, i.e. not babyfaced but still fairly young. No particular guidelines as to facial type or personality; I really don’t know what I want this guy to look like, which is why I need brainstorming fodder.

Originally published at Swan Tower. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

I suggest watching the ElRey channel when they have their kung fu nights, or any Godzilla movie... well, except the Sony one... you get the entire spectrum of age and body types. the smouldering Alien ones in Godzilla are particularly fun.

[sovay]

please share with me names and pictures of East Asian actors or other public figures you especially like!

These are probably all people you have thought of already, because my knowledge of historical actors remains better than my knowledge of present-day ones, but—

You can never go wrong with Sessue Hayakawa. Dude was a silent-era sex symbol for a reason.



Ditto Philip Ahn, pictured here with Anna May Wong in Robert Florey's Daughter of Shanghai (1937):



It probably doesn't hurt that I saw him first as a troubled scientist (pictured here with Momoko Kouchi), but I have always thought that Akihiko Hirata had a great face:



I have never seen Dennis Dun in anything other than Big Trouble in Little China (1986), but I really love him there. Plus he has a great hat:



Similarly, I know nothing about Mark Kamiyama except that he's great in Real Genius (1985), where he rocks the tricky combination of nerd glasses and lab goggles:



The quality of this screencap is a bit crap, I'm sorry, but how do you feel about Benedict Wong circa Dirty Pretty Things (2002)?



And I haven't seen Ken Leung anywhere other than Person of Interest (2011–2016), but I keep reminding myself to change that, because he's great:



[edit] This is probably out of your requested age range, but it is such an excellent photo of Mako that I couldn't resist:

[alessandriana.livejournal.com]

Go watch Nirvana in Fire! It's a fantastic (so, so, so good) show, and you will get plenty of fodder for casting. :D

Some examples:

https://alessandriana.tumblr.com/post/152194842609#notes

https://alessandriana.tumblr.com/post/152163752967/forceemajeuree-nirvana-in-fire-a-summary#notes

https://alessandriana.tumblr.com/post/152041536749/movielosophy-any-boy-born-on-the-7th-eve-will#notes


And then some clothing porn, just because I can:

https://alessandriana.tumblr.com/post/152699610404#notes

http://iwasthylaonce.tumblr.com/post/152976204689

[vcmw]

Godfrey Gao? http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3295837/

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

Try looking at websites for Silicon Valley startups on their "About the Company" pages. You'll get lots of examples.