Random Review: When "Faerie Tale Theatre" Had White People Play Chinese People In "The Nightinggale"

In light of Shelley Duval's demise a few days ago -- I decided to do a random review of an episode of Faerie Tale Theatre. Most of the episodes were usually focused on stories dominated by white people. However, the original story was written by Hans Christian Andersen -- a white man. The cast and crew were forced to use whatever they could. Sure, the late Makoto Iwamatsu (who played the wizard Akiro in Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer) as a gardener -- similar to how Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa played Shang Tsung (a Chinese character) in Mortal Kombat. It's not that awkward until the rest of the cast is shown. 

Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones played the Chinese Emperor. I wonder why Makoto never played the emperor and the role was given to Mick. The kitchen maid was played by Barbara Hershey. The late Keye Luke (Lù Xīqí) played the Imperial Physician -- an American actor who could've played the Emperor. However, most of the cast was still played by non-Asians. I wonder if both Keye and Makoto were involved behind the scenes and made cameos like the late Stan Lee. 

The film set was obviously a stage prop. That means it was meant to be something other than a big-budget production. The gardens, the palace, etc. were more like an upgraded theatrical production. The production would do what they could do. White people playing Chinese characters felt like a high school production in America. Who can remember playing characters outside one's ethnicity in a school play? One could have had a stage production of Aladdin and nobody was Arabic. Faerie Tale Theatre had white people playing as Arabs in its episode of Aladdin. 

This made me appreciate what I call enjoyable awkwardness. If one could handle the obvious makeup of characters or humans playing non-humans -- why not this awkwardness of white people playing Chinese characters? I found myself feeling like a child again rewatching the awkward episode. I feel this episode of Faerie Tale Theatre may have inspired the Japanese production companies to further explore making Japanese productions SET IN THE WEST. A good example may be Dragon Quest has white characters as its main characters but it's a Japanese setting. Power Stone makes Falcon its main character and HE'S BRITISH. Final Fantasy uses white characters even if it's produced by a Japanese company. In fact, I feel Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger decided to take this awkwardness and reverse it with Japanese playing supposedly white characters!