It sounded like a good idea at the time: A Hollywood spy thriller, starring, for the first time in history, an Asian male lead. With an estimated $350 million production budget and up-and-coming Hong Kong actor JK Jr, who, let's be honest, is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but probably the hottest, Brood Empire was basically a sure thing. Until it wasn't.
So how did it all fall apart? There were smart guys involved. So smart, so woke.
So woke it hurts. There was top-notch talent across the board and the financial backing of a heavyweight Chinese studio. And yet, Brood Empire is remembered now not as a historical landmark of Asian representation that smashed the bamboo ceiling in Hollywood, but rather as a fiasco of seismic proportions.
The Whitewash is the definitive oral history of the whole sordid mess. Unofficial. Unasked for.
Only intermittently fact-checked, and featuring a fool's gallery of actors, producers, directors, film historians and scummy click-bait journalists, to answer the question of how it all went so horribly, horribly wrong.
| ISBN: | 9780702267178 |
| Publication date: | 2nd August 2022 |
| Author: | Lu, Siang |
| Publisher: | University of Queensland Press |
| Format: | Ebook |
It sounded like a good idea at the time: A Hollywood spy thriller, starring, for the first time in history, an Asian male lead. With an estimated $350 million production budget and up-and-coming Hong Kong actor JK Jr, who, let's be honest, is not the sharpest tool in the shed, but probably the hottest, Brood Empire was basically a sure thing.
Ebook. £8.21. Digital. Available Immediately. Country restrictions apply..
Whitewash was written by Lu, Siang and published by University of Queensland Press
£8.21. Digital. Available Immediately. Country restrictions apply..