Actually John could speak fluent English with an old-school Hollywood accent. Just back then, before his career took off, he had to play these stereotypical roles of Asian men written by white screenwriters who just wanted to ridicule Asian cultures.
It's too bad, they should have this a story arc relationship for these two character. I guest in 1979 , it would have been to controversial for an international relationship on tv.
@@chloev8907 he’s a huge Hollywood star, asking for $10m USD per movie back in late 80’s. They couldn’t afford him in China and HK, too big of a fish for a shallow pond.
1977 is when Saturday Night Fever came out. China did not even have an open door policy until 1979, which also included the start of a relationship between USA and China. Realistically, John Lone's character here coming from Mainland China would not have been able to enter the USA in 1977. To be more realistic, they could have made his character either come from Hong Kong speaking Cantonese or from Taiwan speaking Mandarin. Hong Kong and Taiwan were the only Chinese speaking territories allowing their people to migrate to the USA and other countries while China was still not allowing their people to migrate to USA.
@@TheJlee28 Mainland Chinese migrating to the US or any other western countries could not directly leave from China in those time periods unless they went through Hong Kong. Until the 1980s, Hong Kong was the only way to migrate out to the US or any western countries from mainland China, but first they had to get some kind of special permit or visa to be able to enter Hong Kong like if they were scholars or as you said intellects or were some kind of very special business people or were in very special situations, but otherwise they could not enter Hong Kong, which was under British control unless they found a way to sneak into the territory. There were already mainland Chinese immigrants migrating to the US back then, but they went through Hong Kong or lived in Hong Kong for a certain amount of time and then getting the paperwork to migrate to western countries and only were granted in certain special circumstances. Sometimes family reunification visa were granted to allow them to go to Hong Kong to get the paperwork and then migrate to the US, but often very limited to special circumstances and difficult to get especially before 1979, but after 1979's open door policy, then it became much easier for family reunification visas to be granted including any work or professional or student visas.
Sarah Guo In China, not many Chinese people’s first languages are mandarin. We basically all have our own local dialects and vernaculars. We learned Mandarin at School.
I’m already 40 still single but desperately wish to be sexy enough to have cute moments that build up to a fiery attraction. Good thing that is going is even for 40 I’m not an old man and still can fit in with a younger crowd. This kind of date and escalation is everything I’d pray happen if I went on a blind date. I speak English but if there were some kind of misunderstanding initially that built up to a full on romance then I can finally fall in love.
I kind of admire his work when he was in his 30’s. However, he gave up a once in a life time opportunity. In 1992, he had a chance to star in a movie that would have made him a house hold name in China. At that time If he willing to take the non Hollywood star treatment then the movie and himself would have been shine in Oscar.
@@shanqing6749 Oh this is interesting. Can you elaborate more about this? I heard the rumor that the producer, the author of the original novel Farewell Concubine & the director didn't like his look because they thought he look wasn't soft & mild enough to be the main actor. Beside, they told everyone that they couldn't satisfy the demand from his side. All of which I didn't believe cause as you can see his convincing perf in M.Butterfly, also he had stated many times that he didn't care about money & fame, he only wanted to be an artist.
Being a household name in China, was that his desire? Probably not or he wouldn't have come to the USA. HongKong stars are household names in all of Asia. And he left HongKong. If he doesn't regret that, then it's ok. He had a lot of sadness in his early life. He was an orphan.