Kentaro Moto travels to Egypt to uncover a plot to blow up a French fleet of vessels.
In the 1930s film series about Asian detectives were very popular, most famously the Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Mr. Wong series. All of course now deemed slightly politically incorrect due to all the title characters being played by caucasian actors in make up going through the stereotypes. Being that I've just seen this Mr Moto film I'll use as an example, the portrayal isn't actually that offensive, just poor. The brilliant Peter Lorre takes up the role, slick back the hair, add some teeth and put on some glasses and he's ready to go. The only problem is that Peter Lorre still looks like Lorre and is hard to imagine as a Japanese. In the routine of 'Yellow Face' as it's called another touch is put on the 'Engrish', switch the Rs for Ls and so forth. Lorre however sounds like Lorre, which is probably good enough for the producers as his German accent sounds foreign and that's all the audience needs. Moto on the other hand does use 'Engrish' himself, merely as part of his disguise to turn the Magnificant Moto into the humble antique dealer Kuroki. As I say Lorre is hard to picture as Asian even more so when his assistant, played by an actual Asian actor (who is killed shortly afterwards) stand side by side with him.
As much as mis-representation of race offends I can't help but be fascinated by the stereotypes which man has come up with. To me these are like abstract characterizations of human kind placed within Hollywood's reality.
As for the film itself, it's a lot of fun, I enjoyed it very much and plan to look further in to the series as well as the others mentioned.
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