Doctor Strange

[GeneChing]

You can find Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum on Google Maps
BY JESSICA DERSCHOWITZ • @JESSICASARA


(Jay Maidment)
Doctor Strange (film)

Posted October 24 2016 — 8:43 AM EDT

Doctor Strange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as the titular hero, doesn’t cast its way into theaters until next week — but ahead of that, you can find the Sorcerer Supreme in the not-so-mystical digital realm.

As spotted by Empire’s Chris Hewitt, Strange’s homestead can be found on Google Maps. Typing in “Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum” brings up the location at 177A Bleecker Street in New York City, and Google classifies it as an “Association or Business.” (Perhaps not surprisingly, Marvel.com is listed as its official website.)

People have also been leaving reviews of the Sanctorum. “I came in for just a headache, the good doctor also cured my demonic possession and gave my aura a facelift. Now that’s service!” one satisfied customer said. Another wrote, “Came by to cleanse an ancient artifact. 10/10 Would def recommend.”



Doctor Strange, also starring Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, opens Nov. 4. For more on the film, check out EW’s recent cover story.

The location is a Deli apparently. Hope they can nerd out and milk it for what it's worth.

This Week's Cover: Getting weird with Doctor Strange
BY CLARK COLLIS • @CLARKCOLLIS

Doctor Strange (film)
Posted October 12 2016 — 8:44 AM EDT

Are you ready to get weird?

This week’s cover star is Benedict Cumberbatch, dressed in the full Sorcerer Supreme garb of his titular, magic powers-wielding character in Doctor Strange (out Nov. 4). And the Sherlock star has no doubt that Marvel’s new superhero movie is indeed a freaky affair.

“It’s a peculiar one — Strange by name, strange by name,” says the British actor.

Don’t believe him? Then maybe you’ll believe your own eyes when you see the array of eye-popping exclusive images from the movie which EW has snagged for this week’s issue. Plus: we chat with Cumberbatch’s fellow cast members Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, and Mads Mikkelsen, Doctor Strange director Scott Derrickson, and Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige, who reveals he has big big plans for Strange. You can also get the lowdown on the Doctor Strange costume and find out if the rumors are true about McAdams’ emergency room doctor Christine Palmer adopting the alter-ego of Night Nurse in the course of the film.

Is that enough superhero coverage? Not even close! For this special, double issue, our crack team of comics-loving writers judged the strengths, origin stories, and style of more characters than even Brainiac could count to come up with the ultimate list of the 50 Most Powerful Superheroes. What number is Batman? Or Black Widow? Or Buffy? You’ll have to get the magazine (or develop X-Ray vision) to find out.

But wait, there’s more! In this week’s issue we also get up close and personal with actress and podcaster Anna Faris, singer JoJo, and the be-witching Elvira while an array of horror-loving filmmakers recommend the scary movies we should be watching this Halloween. The really terrifying thing? We still somehow found the space to review all the new films, TV shows, music, and books. The result, if we say so ourselves, is downright super.

And if that’s not enough, EW is offering an advance screening of Doctor Strange on Friday, Oct. 28 at EW PopFest. Tickets are available as a bonus to the first 300 two-day VIP tickets sold, so get clicking for your chance to be one of the first people to see the film before it hits theaters. EW PopFest runs from Oct. 29-30 at The Reef in Downtown Los Angeles. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to http://ewpopfest.com/.

To read more on Doctor Strange and EW’s 50 Most Powerful Superheroes, pick up the new issue of Entertainment Weekly on stands Friday, or buy it here now – and subscribe for more exclusive interviews and photos, only in EW.


Image Credit: Jay Maidment/©2016 Marvel. All Rights Reserved.

[GeneChing]

[boxerbilly]

Loved it !

[GeneChing]

© MARIO ANZUONI / REUTERS

DIVERSITY
‘Doctor Strange’ Director Owns Up to Whitewashing Controversy
Filmmaker Scott Derrickson opens up about the MCU’s trippiest film yet, and the ****storm surrounding his decision to erase The Ancient One’s Asianness.
JEN YAMATO
11.02.16 2:14 AM ET

In Marvel’s Doctor Strange, Benedict Cumberbatch’s brilliant neurosurgeon damages his million-dollar hands in a fateful accident, exhausts all known Western medicine in search of a cure, then goes careening across the world into the mountains of Kathmandu to give Eastern treatments a shot. What he learns there from The Ancient One, a powerful mystic occupying the Caucasian female form of Tilda Swinton, is far more than he bargained for.
“It comes down to two lines from The Ancient One in her meetings with Strange,” offered director Scott Derrickson, whose eye-popping visuals and cracking pace drew praise from early critics. “In the first one, on that magical mystery mind-trip, she says, ‘Who are you in this vast universe, Doctor Strange?’” And then: “‘It’s not about you.’ Somewhere in that question and statement is the whole of the film.”
Doctor Strange cracks open the door to infinite new possibilities and spiritual questions—for example, what does the introduction of godlike powers and secret dimensions say about the existence of God in the MCU? “That’s a very compelling question,” pondered Derrickson, who makes his Marvel debut after helming The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Sinister, and Deliver Us From Evil. “It confirms the existence of a complex spiritual plane, and it doesn’t give closure to that. Does God exist in all of it, or beyond all of it?” He paused. “To me, yes. But not to everyone who reads [the comics]—nor does it need to.”

Derrickson co-wrote Doctor Strange, the 14th film in Marvel’s expansive superhero playground, with his Sinister collaborator C. Robert Cargill, filling the picture with expansive, dazzling dimensions hidden beneath the surface of the MCU’s earthbound and galaxy-tripping worlds. But the pair had a trickier road to travel to bring the Doctor Strange of Marvel’s 1960s comics into the 21st century—gifted with a charismatic hero in the vein of the MCU’s brilliant egocentric fave Tony Stark, yet hampered by the problematic streak of Orientalist cultural appropriation that looms over his origin story.
In the comics, Swinton’s character, known as The Ancient One, was a powerful Tibetan mystic who introduced jerky American Stephen Strange to a new life filled with magical powers and an Asian-influenced aesthetic. He was originally written as an Asian man, and a dated stereotype at that. Another character central to the mystical stronghold of Kamar-Taj was Wong, a descendant in a long line of Chinese servants loyal to the Ancient One. Derrickson knew he had an issue on his hands that would have to be addressed.


Tilda Swinton and Benedict Cumberbatch in 'Doctor Strange.'
MARVEL

“It was a challenge from the beginning that I knew I was facing with both Wong and the Ancient One being pretty bad racial stereotypes—1960s versions of what Western white people thought Asians were like,” he said. “We weren’t going to have the Ancient One as the Fu Manchu magical Asian on the hill being the mentor to the white hero. I knew that we had a long way to go to get away from that stereotype and cliché.”
Derrickson first chose to change the gender of The Ancient One, making her a wise and powerful female magician in charge of the sorcerer-warriors in training at Kamar-Taj (now transplanted from Tibet to the more China censors-friendly Nepal). The move instantly multiplied the presence of significant female characters in Doctor Strange, which include Rachel McAdams as the ex-flame and fellow doctor who tethers Strange to his old life in a strong but still rather thankless supporting turn.
Thankfully, Swinton’s Ancient One has far more to do, and more on her mind, than just help Strange realize his super-powered potential—although yes, she also does that. She battles, she leads, she ponders the mystery of life and beyond with a complexity that belies the sparse details of her background. Thanks to Swinton’s androgynous tranquility and effortless sense of strength, the character takes on its own new intriguing magic, and she stands out as one of the highlights of the film’s cast. (If only Doctor Strange actually passed the Bechdel test.)
The move at least marks an overdue step toward progress for Marvel, which has earned scrutiny for its glaring lack of strong female roles in over a dozen feature films and counting. The company has shortchanged the female heroes it does have when it comes to selling toys, and has yet to give a non-male leading superheroine her own standalone adventure within the vast and fantastical MCU, where playboys and aliens with magical hammers and talking raccoons keep saving the world, but audiences will have to wait until 2018’s Black Panther for a black hero to get his due—and even longer to see a woman claim top billing.
“The first decision that I made was to make it a woman, before we ever went to draft, before we ever had a script,” said Derrickson. “I thought it was interesting to not only make it a woman, but let’s find a woman with some maturity—not a 26-year-old leather-clad fanboy dream girl. Let’s get a real female actor in here. There was a desire for diversity in making that decision."

continued next post

[GeneChing]

However, although writing The Ancient One as a woman was a step forward for gender representation, it presented a new cultural predicament, Derrickson says. He and Marvel discussed casting an Asian actress in the role before making another major change to the character—in order to avoid playing into yet another Asian stereotype.
“As we started to work on it, my assumption was that it would be an Asian character, that it would be an Asian woman,” he said. “We talked about Asian actors who could do it, as we were working on the script, every iteration of it—including the one that Tilda played—but when I envisioned that character being played by an Asian actress, it was a straight-up Dragon Lady.”
“I know the history of cinema and the portrayal of the Dragon Lady in Anna May Wong films, and the continued stereotype throughout film history and even more in television,” he continued. “I just didn’t feel like there was any way to get around that because the Dragon Lady, by definition, is a domineering, powerful, secretive, mysterious, Asian woman of age with duplicitous motives—and I just described Tilda’s character. I really felt like I was going to be contributing to a bad stereotype.”
In order to avoid one offensive stereotype, Derrickson and Co. effectively erased The Ancient One’s Asianness. Along with it disappeared any discernable debt the character might have represented to the place and people and culture the film’s setting, costumes, and multicultural spiritual mishmash still borrows. In trying to be one kind of woke, Doctor Strange became most unfortunately unwoke—and that’s a lesson Marvel, Disney, and other Hollywood studios should learn from.
In the process, the director says, he learned a lot about the term ‘whitewashing’ from the irate Asian community that took to the internet to take him and Marvel to task. “At the time when casting was happening there was a lot of anger circulating about female representation, but the term ‘whitewashing’ wasn’t even a term that I knew in the way that it’s used now,” he explained. “I knew it in the classical sense of yellowface, of white actors playing Asian characters. So I wasn’t as sensitive to that issue—but I was aware that I was erasing a potential Asian role.”
To counterbalance the shift away from an Asian Ancient One, Derrickson and Cargill reinvented the character of Wong, played in the film by Benedict Wong. “I inverted everything about him from the comics,” he explained. “Instead of a manservant, he’s a librarian. Instead of a sidekick, he’s Strange’s intellectual mentor. He’s a master of the mystic arts. He’s a very different kind of presence, and I felt like that was required.”



Wong most certainly comes off better in the film as a sage librarian warrior than he would have as a subservient house Asian. But all of this will still sound deeply unsatisfying to many of the fans and cultural critics who have rightfully taken issue with Doctor Strange’s high-profile racebending.
Give credit to Derrickson for acknowledging that the very community he was trying to avoid offending is the one most justifiably upset at the erasure—and that trading one underrepresented onscreen minority for another is far from an ideal solution to correcting entrenched racism, in any property being given the blockbuster treatment.
“Diversity is the responsibility of directors, and I took that as seriously as I could,” he said. “Whitewashing, if you use the term the way it’s used now—it’s what I did with the role. But it also implies racial insensitivity and it implies racist motives and I don’t think I had either. I was really acting out of what I still feel is the best possible choice. But it’s like I chose the lesser evil—and just because you choose the lesser evil it doesn’t mean you’re not choosing an evil.”
To the vocal opponents upset over Swinton’s casting, Derrickson lends his support. “I don’t feel that they’re wrong,” he said, sympathetic. “I was very aware of the racial issues that I was dealing with. But I didn’t really understand the level of pain that’s out there, for people who grew up with movies like I did but didn’t see their own faces up there.”
He offered an antidote to the evasiveness that greets most complaints when studio products are hit with critiques of cultural appropriation: Ownership of the creative choices he made and the negative ripple effect they may have on the culture by virtue of the enormous reach of the MCU. So rarely do filmmakers comment on their own controversies—let alone agree with their critics from within the heavily fortified Disney-Marvel machine—that Derrickson’s candor, in itself, feels like progress.
“The angry voices and the loud voices that are out there I think are necessary,” said Derrickson, who’s looking at breakout $70 million opening weekend projections for Doctor Strange, which is already topping the overseas box office. “And if it pushes up against this film, I can’t say I don’t support it. Because how else is it going to change? This is just the way we’ve got to go to progress, and whatever price I have to pay for the decision I’ve made, I’m willing to pay.”

We saw the screener last Tuesday and will have our own exclusive tomorrow.

[GeneChing]

Nice attempt by this author to connect malla-yuddha, but he missed Scott Adkins - that's so key to anyone who follow the martial arts drama.

#DoctorStrange
The Real Martial Arts of Marvel's Doctor Strange
November 3, 2016 at 07:41AM


Photo by Marvel via YouTube / Screenshot
Posted by Matt Juul @MattJuul
Digital Arts and Entertainment Writer at Boston Magazine
Matt Juul
#Marvel will take a bigger step into the world of magic and multiple dimensions with its latest superhero blockbuster #DoctorStrange, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. While the idea of a spellcasting sorcerer should conjure up images akin to a Gandalf or a Harry Potter, the MCU's newest hero actually has more in common with martial arts icons like Bruce Lee.

Similar to Marvel's upcoming Iron Fist Netflix series, Doctor Strange is heavily influenced by the mystical elements of old school kung fu movies. According to director Scott Derrickson, those types of films made a huge impact on how the fights scenes were choreographed, due to his love of the genre.

"Martial arts is the kind of action that does tie in well to the supernatural," Derrickson recently told Collider. "That is a whole subgenre within martial arts cinema. The supernatural martial arts movie. Particularly within Asian cinema. And I felt like when it came to fighting in the movie that just made sense to certainly to go in that direction and stay away from gunfire and things like that."

He added that the "supernatural action, combat fighting" takes place "within a larger surreal canvas" so that the viewer is "never just watching fighting."

The love for kung fu movies even extends to the film's main antagonist, the conniving Kaecilius played by Mads Mikkelsen. The actor revealed to Polygon that he has always been an avid martials arts and comic book fan, so getting a role in Doctor Strange was a "dream come true."

"Basically, half of my life I was reading comic books, and the other half I was watching Bruce Lee," Mikkelsen said.

While they may be used to create rifts in reality and magical bolts of energy, the actual martial arts skills shown on screen in Doctor Strange are actually rooted in real-life techniques that come from cultures with a lot of training experience.

Set on the outskirts of Kathmandu, Nepal, the film takes place in a region with a long history in martial arts, such as the combat-wrestling style known as malla-yuddha. The 5,000 year old art, which was created in the area now known as Nepal and South Asia, utilizes grappling, punching, and pressure point strikes, in addition to unsavory techniques like joint-breaking and biting.

Although malla-yuddha sounds perfect for the UFC circa 1993, it doesn't really work with the movie's aesthetic. Instead, Doctor Strange drew on kung fu styles that originated in Nepal's northern neighbor of China, before spreading to other areas of Asia and around the world.

Since Kathmandu has become a welcoming place to practitioners of Buddhism, it's no surprise that the fights in the film were influenced by a martial art that developed alongside this belief system.

The Shaolin monks are probably the most well-known kung fu fighters, having fine tuned the art for more than 1,000 years, but modern incarnations of the style didn't really become popular in Nepal until quite recently, thanks to people like this Buddhist nunnery and groups of interested kids.

Any longtime martial arts movie fan can spot the technical motifs of kung fu styles, such as the use of open palm strikes and linear attacks. These movements, although a bit outdated for combat in a cage, work seamlessly with the spellcasting techniques and projections used in Doctor Strange, There's a flair to kung fu moves, and the film expertly uses them to connect the physicality of the characters to their otherworldly skills.

In addition to using hand-to-hand combat as a means of channeling one's inner magic, the Ancient One, played by Tilda Swinton, and her various followers can also imbue their weapons with extraordinary powers.

Many of the fighting tools used in Doctor Strange are your garden variety "ancient weapons," ranging from bo staffs and sticks to spears and blades. These items are pretty much universal among traditional martial arts, including kung fu.

Two weapons featured in the film that you don't see often, though, are the fan and chain whip. Both are used as magically created weapons in training and in battle.

The fan has been a tool of war in many cultures, particularly in Japan, which used several versions of the weapon. The Japanese tessen was a metal folding fan that could be used as a club, while the large open gunbai were used to protect from arrows. A similar weapon known as the tieshan is also in the armory of tai chi practitioners.

The Ancient One is the only sorcerer in Doctor Strange who seems to project fan like weapons when she's on the battlefield. Much like their real life usage, the fans both deflect blows and can inflict damage.

Doctor Strange often uses a mystical version of a chain whip that he creates with his powers. Much like the fan, this weapon is well known to those who study tai chi and other Chinese-based martial arts.

All in all, Doctor Strange taps into the mystical side of martial arts, using old school styles like kung fu to keep the magical elements grounded in the physical world.

[GeneChing]

£150m = $187m

Harry Potter special effects firm looks east with sale to China group
Shanghai-listed CIH buys Oscar-winning special-effects firm behind Doctor Strange in deal valuing company at £150m


Framestore worked on the Harry Potter films. Photograph: Alamy

Julia Kollewe
Thursday 3 November 2016 11.31 EDT Last modified on Thursday 3 November 2016 20.05 EDT

An Oscar-winning British visual effects company, which has worked on films including Doctor Strange and the Harry Potter franchise, is selling itself to a Chinese group in a deal that values it at nearly £150m.

Framestore has agreed a deal with Cultural Investment Holdings Co (CIH) that will mean the Shanghai-listed group acquiring 75% of the business.

The remainder is owned by the firm’s founder and chief executive, Sir William Sargent, and the rest of the management team.

Framestore is currently working on Paddington 2, the sequel to last year’s box office success about the bear from Peru. The London-based firm has also performed the visual effects for JK Rowling’s Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, which opens later this month.

As part of the deal, Malaysia’s sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad is selling its 30% stake in Framestore along with other shareholders who used to work for the business.

“I started the process about nine months ago. We’re swapping the partners we had before for the Chinese group,” said Sargent, who set up Framestore 30 years ago and retains a 10% stake. “I’m looking east.”

Following the firm’s success in North America and Europe, it wants to tap into the fast-growing Chinese and Indian film markets. “It’s not easy to do on our own,” he said.

Sargent said CIH had been chosen from a list of 100 interested parties that included bidders from North America, the UK and Asia-Pacific.

Framestore employs two people in Beijing, the centre of the Chinese film industry, and plans to open an office there before Christmas. CIH is also based in Beijing.

Framestore started as a five-person team based in Soho, the heart of London’s creative industries, and has become one of the world’s biggest post-production houses in the film industry. It now employs 1,400 staff and has offices in London, New York, Montreal and Los Angeles.

Framestore works with Hollywood film studios Warner Bros and Disney-owned Marvel. It has won an Oscar for its work on Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity in 2014 and was nominated for Oscars for Superman Returns, The Dark Knight and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.

The deal would be the latest in a series of Chinese takeovers of British companies. Cala Homes, the UK’s largest private housebuilder, is reportedly in talks with Chinese property developer Evergrande Group, whose shareholders include Alibaba chief executive Jack Ma.

British television and film production is booming, thanks to a number of tax breaks. According to the latest official figures, film and TV programme production was the fastest-growing segment within Britain’s dominant services sector in the third quarter, with 16.4% growth.

[GeneChing]

More Marvel Martial Magic! Read What a Long DOCTOR STRANGE Trip It’s Been… by Patrick Lugo and Gene Ching

[GeneChing]

I'm with Kusatsu on this.

NOVEMBER 03, 2016 12:02pm PT by Aaron Couch
'Doctor Strange': Wong's Journey from Stereotype to Unlikely Symbol of Progress
The character has a troubled past in the comics, but the first actor to play him in 1978 says the role was a step forward.


Benedict Wong in 'Doctor Strange'

The character has a troubled past in the comics, but the first actor to play him in 1978 says the role was a step forward.
In 1978's Dr. Strange TV movie, Clyde Kusatsu got to do something rare for an Asian-American actor at the time — portraying a character who wasn't steeped in stereotypes.

"I didn't have to run around with exotic robes anything representing the mysterious East or whatever," says Kusatsu. "At that time in '78, it was trying to overturn stereotypes people had about being Asian. Because everybody thought it was so exotic. You're going to do Kung fu or something like that."

What makes this even more remarkable is his character, Wong, has its comic book roots in such stereotypes. His politically incorrect origin is a famous blemish in Marvel history, with 1963's Strange Tales No. 110 introducing Wong as a manservant to Stephen Strange. His early tales are problematic, to say the least. (At one point, martial arts expert Wong declares that it's his duty to see to Strange's care and comfort, just as his father and forefathers have done for the Sorcerer Supreme throughout history.)

But Kusatsu's Wong was none of that. He spoke with an American accent and dressed like James Bond, favoring three-piece suits as he assisted an ancient magician (played by Oscar winner John Mills). Wong was a talented magician in his own right, standing up to the villainous Morgan le Fay (Jessica Walter) in battle.



For Kusatsu, being No. 2 on the call sheet for a CBS project in 1978 was a major sign of progress. Less than a decade earlier, one of his professors at Northwestern not-so-subtly suggested he should quit acting.

"He cornered me and said, 'Why do you want to be an actor? There's only August Moon and the King and I. How could you possibly think of making a living?' " Kusatsu recalls. "It crushed me. Until after I realized, 'I've got to work ten times harder than a white actor.' "


Kusatsu with John Mills in 'Dr. Strange'.

Nearly 40 years later, Doctor Strange is preparing to hit the big screen — and for Marvel Studios, adapting source material written in a very different time was a challenge.

"Wong — as rendered in the original comics — is so problematic that we weren't sure he was going to make the cut," says Doctor Strange screenwriter Jon Spaihts. "He needed to be more than a Man Friday to our hero. He needed to be a complex human being with power and agency and a presence of his own."

In the new film, Wong (played by Benedict Wong) is the librarian in Kamar-Taj, where Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is learning the mystic arts. He's no sidekick to Strange, and he's certainly not a manservant, with Benedict Wong's performance giving him some truly breakout moments in the film.

The film has taken heat for the casting of Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One, who is traditionally Asian in the comics. Those involved with the film have said The Ancient One can be anyone throughout time and is no one person.

Kusatsu, who has enjoyed a career spanning 43 years of continuous work as an actor, has been observing Benedict Wong's performances from afar, taking particular note of his work on British television. He would like to turn the conversation away from the whitewashing controversy surrounding Swinton's casting and focus it on the actor who succeeded him in the role of Wong.

"We all know why the Ancient One was cast in that way. It's just part of the age old thing of how to get people and the money and the distributors and open up the marketplace and not offending China or anything like that," he says. "To me, what the biggest point that was missed was Benedict is Asian and he was cast as an Asian character. It would have been worse if Tilda Swinton wound up playing Wong. Then you really have a problem."

He also points to Benedict Wong's TV work as being a force for good when it comes to breaking down stereotypes.

"You don't usually except to see an Asian face with a British accent of any kind [on TV]. That's another way of breaking down people's stereotypes of how Asians should sound like," says Kusatsu. "We all know what they look like but everyone has this ingrained thing promoted by television and stereotypes of how a person should sound. It's always been something to push forward at."


Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images
Clyde Kusatsu

[Jimbo]

I agree 100% with Kusatsu on this.

I've known or met Asians who spoke with a variety of non-Asian accents (and languages): English, Australian, French, Spanish, Brazilian/Portuguese, Texan, Arkansas(ian?), New York, etc., etc., etc. Yet when lots of people see that, they seem puzzled.

"What??? WTF?!? Japanese guy speaking Portuguese!?! Lol."

"Lol @ Chinese dude talking like a cowboy."

"I just couldn't get over the Asian guy from Australia at my church, talking with an Aussie accent. I always do a double-take. It's freaky."

"Chinese guy talks like the Sopranos, LMFAO!!"

These are actual comments I've seen online over the years. It should be obvious to even a simpleton that you speak the language/dialect and have the resulting accent of wherever you grew up.

[boxerbilly]

Leo Fong is an old cowboy !

My sister can speak either American English or Australian English accent wise and do so better than the natives. She has that gift. Me, I can manage enough American English to offend everyone and get kicked out of everywhere.

edit- She did not start learning English until about 16. She was raised a very traditional Okinawan lifestyle.

[Jimbo]

Leo Fong is an old cowboy !

My sister can speak either American English or Australian English accent wise and do so better than the natives. She has that gift. Me, I can manage enough American English to offend everyone and get kicked out of everywhere.

edit- She did not start learning English until about 16. She was raised a very traditional Okinawan lifestyle.

That's cool!

When I was acting, I studied/trained the 'standard British accent', Received Pronunupciation, or RP for short. I added it to the 'special skills' category on my resume. I was pretty good at it for a while. But since then it's gone a little downhill. If you study it, you kind of lose it a bit if you don't keep it up or use it a lot.

[GeneChing]

Called it. From our review: "Benedict Wong brings the same smoldering gravitas that he imbues into his groundbreaking performance as Kublai Khan in the Original Netflix Series Marco Polo. Often, Asian Hollywood film roles are just ‘flower vases’ nowadays – just decoration and of no consequence to the story – Oriental is only ornamental. Wong steals every scene he is in just like he did in The Martian (2015). At first, Wong echoes the growling ‘noble savage’ stereotype of the bodyguard/manservant Oddjob from Goldfinger (1964). But later, just as Bruce Lee took the subservient Kato to a whole other level, Wong becomes the most standout character after Strange and the Ancient One. Benedict Wong has already committed to continuing to play Wong in Avenger: Infinity War, slated for May 2018. Asian actors lost the role of the Ancient One, but gained the first significant recurring role in the big screen MCU with Wong."

Benedict Wong gives 'Doctor Strange' a needed Asian superhero
Brian Truitt , USA TODAY 6 p.m. EST November 7, 2016

Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Tilda Swinton star in the Marvel movie 'Doctor Strange.' Marvel


(Photo: Marvel)

Beyoncé. Adele. Wong.

All one-named icons in their fields, though the latter is magical rather than musical in Doctor Strange, which topped the box office this weekend with $85 million. But Wong conjures something never seen before in Marvel's multiverse of comic-book movies: an Asian superhero.

Who better to play a mystical drill sergeant and hard-nosed librarian with that moniker than British star Benedict Wong?

“Honestly, I was watching Marvel films and was always crestfallen: Where are the super-Asians?” Wong says with a laugh. “People are looking to be represented by their heroes.”

A regular on Netflix’s Marco Polo (as Mongol leader Kublai Khan) who also has appeared in Ridley Scott's The Martian and Prometheus, Wong co-stars as one of the sorcerers of the Kamar-Taj, a group of magic folks dedicated to protecting Earth. When the villainous Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) tries to bring darkness and doom, Wong (the character, not the real dude) wields the Wand of Watoomb to help out alongside Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch).


Benedict Wong at last month's world premiere of 'Doctor Strange' in Hollywood. (Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez, Getty Images for Disney)

It’s a different take on Wong than the one familiar to many Doctor Strange fans. He first appeared in 1963 as Strange’s sidekick and valet, and while he has come into his own as a martial-arts master, the filmmakers wanted Wong to stand out as a figure of influence.

“Wong at his worst in comics is a dated stereotype, the obedient Chinese manservant, and there’s so much more possibility in him,” says screenwriter Jon Spaihts. “It was important that Wong be powerful in his own right.”

Growing up in Manchester, Wong (the real guy, not the wizard) was a big Spider-Man fan and comics collector. Yet when it came to role models, “I looked to space, really,” says Wong, the son of two Hong Kong immigrants, who loved Star Wars and Steven Spielberg as a kid.

The 45-year-old actor did the Bard's work in the late 1990s — from The Merchant of Venice to Antony and Cleopatra — and had a string of supporting roles in films such as Spy Game, Dirty Pretty Things, Sunshine and Moon.

Wong isn't a household face yet in the USA, but he's a bingeworthy one: In addition to Marco Polo, he also stars as a cop in the "Hated in the Nation" episode of Netflix's Black Mirror, which Wong calls "twisty darkness."


Master Wong (Benedict Wong) wields the Wand of Watoomb in 'Doctor Strange.' (Photo: Jay Maidment)

Another highlight for Wong was voicing an as-yet-unnamed character in Spielberg’s upcoming Ready Player One, the adaptation of Ernest Cline's novel. “You’re working with him," Wong says of the filmmaker, "and your inner 11-year-old child is shrilling, ‘What is going on?!’ ”

He hopes his diverse superhero is magical not only to youngsters but also to actors like himself. “Let’s bang the gong and chime for more Asian superheroes,” he says. “The gatekeepers can certainly open the door — there’s a wealth of East Asian talent around, and that needs to be tapped into.”

And Wong will be Wong again onscreen soon enough. He already has had discussions with directors Anthony and Joe Russo about what the character could do alongside Strange in Avengers: Infinity War (in theaters May 4, 2018).

“Wong is fully aware of the Avengers,” the actor says. “I feel very welcomed in the whole Marvel universe, and we’ll just see what unfolds. I’m ready to go with Wong and his bag of relics.”

[GeneChing]

Scott Adkins, not the diet.

Action Star Scott Adkins Steps Up From 'Undisputed' to Marvel Studios’ 'Doctor Strange'

After making a name for himself in the "Undisputed" franchise, actor Scott Adkins sees his days on the C-list coming to an end with his mysterious role in Marvel Studios’ "Doctor Strange."

by Andrew Gutman | gutman26



British-born martial artist and actor Scott Adkins has more than 50 movie credits to his name. He’s built a cult following as lead protagonist Yuri Boyka in the last three films in the Undisputed franchise and shared the screen with action movie legends Sylvester Stallone and Jean-Claude Van Damme in The Expendables 2. Adkins is next set to appear alongside Benedict Cumberbatch in Marvel Studios’ latest blockbuster, Doctor Strange, which hit theaters on Nov. 4. Despite all of these roles, Adkins is still stuck on Hollywood’s C-list, which is something the 40-year-old action star is determined to roundhouse kick to the curb.

“They compare my films with The Expendables or Marvel movies, but you can’t compare them. Those films are made in six months.”

Adkins filmed his Undisputed movies in just five weeks.

“I challenge you to find anyone making films in that amount of time that are better than the ones I’m making, but of course, people don’t see it that way.”


Above: Adkins as Yuri Boyka in Boyka: Undisputed, in theaters January 2017. Adkins throws his signature spinning side kick at fellow Brit, Martyn Ford. Photo credit: Millenium Films

What they just see, and can’t get past, is Adkins’ ripped physique. Bringing Yuri Boyka’s world to life translates to 14 hours of physicality six days a week, plus additional workouts to maintain the shredded 190 pounds for the role of a Russian prison fighter who routinely goes all Bruce Lee—he performs all the moves—on his opponents in spectacular fashion. To look the part, Adkins typically follows a traditional bodybuilding split four days per week with two days dedicated to martial arts, refueling with balanced portions of whole foods, so he’s ready to do it all again the next day.

“It doesn’t even make sense to think that I can’t up my game. The thing is when you’re making a martial arts film it affects your performance as a dramatic actor as well because you are absolutely shattered,” Adkins says. “Directors can attest that I’m one of the hardest working actors because I love [acting], and I feel privileged to be able to do it.”

Adkins grew up a reserved kid from Sutton Coldfield, a small village 10 miles north of Birmingham. Early on he had aspirations of joining his action-movie idols—Lee and Van Damme—as an action-movie icon. At 18 he started acting and eventually enrolled in drama school. With eight years of martial arts already under his black belt, he landed small gigs in TV shows and low-budget action flicks. Although every actor has to start somewhere, Adkins admits these decisions could have played a role in the lack of attention he receives from big-time studios. It wasn’t until 2006 when Undisputed 2 was released that Adkins’ following began to gather. And after appearing in The Expendables 2 as one of Van Damme’s henchmen, his fans set up an Internet campaign pushing to get him more lead roles. Adkins’ response: “Well, I quite agree.”

The man who turned his father’s garage into a dojo is gaining momentum.


Photo credit: Millenium Films

With a cash cow like Marvel Studios’ movies—The Avengers, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Iron Man 3 all earned more than $1 billion each at the box office—will this be the role that finally catapults Adkins’ career? He’s not banking on it.

“I’m not the star of the movie. Hopefully what I do in it gives me more notoriety so I can be a part of bigger films,” says Adkins. “But it just takes somebody high up to say, ‘OK, we’re going to take a chance on you, kid.’ I don’t feel like I’ve had that opportunity. At least give me the shot, and if I fail, OK. I’ve only got myself to blame.”

Adkins is starting to film Accident Man—a hit man who makes his kills look like accidents—and just completed work on two more films, Savage Dog and Altar Rock. As usual, the days on set were long. And as Adkins continues to wait for his big break, he knows when the day arrives, it won’t feel strange.

[Jimbo]

I saw Doctor Strange and have to say, IMO it's the best superhero movie I've ever seen. 'Nuff said.