'Marco Polo' is the Original White-Guy-in-The-Orient Adventure

Netflix's upcoming original series features lots of swords and gongs and sexy Asians on silk sheets.



Netflix's latest venture into original programming is Marco Polo, an epic, big-budget sex-and-violence adventure series based on the exploits of the famed explorer, who traveled down the Silk Road from Italy to China in the 13th century. Uh oh. It's the original white-guy-in-Asia adventure. The first trailer for the series has dropped, and it is indeed an eye-rolling affair:

Why The Jeremy Lin Story will star Philip Seymour Hoffman

Totally Biased's Kevin Kataoka drops some knowledge on Hollywood, Asians, and the lack thereof.



Tom Hardy will star in The Outsider, an "epic story" set in post-World War II Japan about a former American G.I. who becomes part of the yakuza. Yay. Another movie about a white guy's adventures in Asia. (The wrinkle with this one is that it marks the Hollywood English-language debut of prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike.)

What's up with that? Here's Totally Biased writer Kevin Kataoka, talking about Hollywood's popular practice of making movies about Asian subject matter... starring someone who is not Asian. Y'all know what I'm talking about. I've been saying it for years. And Kevin knows what's up too: Asian Evasion.

Brett Ratner is producing the modern Madame Butterfly movie nobody wanted, set during the Japanese tsunami

Yet another movie about a White Man's Adventures in Asia.

This movie news makes my soul sad... Whose idea was this evil, unholy union? Shit-tastic director Brett Ratner has reportedly teamed up with Poland's Alvernia Studios to produce Magnitude 9, an updated version of Madame Butterfly. Noooooo! We don't want it: Brett Ratner to produce Madame Butterfly update.

Ratner will produce a modern version of the tragic love story, set against the 2011 tsunami disaster in Japan. The story, written and directed by Agnieszka Vosloo, is about an ambitious U.S. Navy officer encounters a mysterious local girl in Tokyo as he prepares to return home to his fiancee in Washington.

Yup, yet another white-man-adventures-in-Asia movie. Hooray:

WTF: These white rappers claim to have "Swag Like Asian"

What... is this? Yes, this is supposed to be comedy, but I'm completely confounded by this music video for "Swag Like An Asian" by self-proclaimed "multimillionaire hip hop luminaries" Buckwheat Groats. You might have seen their stuff on Funny or Die. I don't know too much about them, but they have a deal with Warner Music, and they apparently really like Asians. And Asian stuff. And they made a song about it. I'm just shaking my head: