In South Korea, several major media outlets have pointed out the same thing: the Japanese Terminator Genisys poster does not feature Korean actor Byung-hun Lee.
Below, you can see the newly revealed Japanese poster:
No Byung-hun Lee.
Via The Korea Times, the country’s oldest English language newspaper, here’s how this is being reported in an article titled “Japanese Terminator poster leaves out Korean actor”:
A Japanese poster for the upcoming Hollywood action blockbuster “Terminator: Genisys” has omitted Korean actor Byung-hun Lee, who has a supporting role in the film.
The poster shows the main cast, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney — but not Lee, who plays a terminator cyborg T-1000.
Why Japan has omitted Lee is a mystery. In 2013, Japan featured him on a poster for the Hollywood action movie “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” in which the actor, 44, played ninja bodyguard Storm Shadow. Lee and American action star Bruce Willis were on the poster…
Similar stories have appeared on numerous Korean news sites, such as Movie Daum, Stoo.com, Segye and more, which mention the “curiosity” and “disappointment” that Lee isn’t included on the Japanese poster.
I guess the implication is that Lee isn’t being featured because of South Korean and Japan’s rocky relationship?
But…the actor doesn’t appear on the official international poster:
What’s more, many the posters in the US and abroad don’t feature Lee:
This art doesn’t even features Schwarzenegger.
There is a T-1000 character poster in the US that features Lee, but he doesn’t seem to appear in any group shots for posters released in the US and abroad.
Here is said character poster for the US (Note that Japan hasn’t gotten any character posters yet.)
As The Korea Times points out, Lee was featured on the G.I. Joe: Retaliation poster in Japan in 2013. But that wasn’t a great year for relations between the two countries, because that year saw headlines like “Bad Feelings Dominate Japan-South Korea Public Sentiment” and “A Growing Chill Between South Korea and Japan Creates Problems for the U.S.”
Picture: GiantBomb
Lee, who previously starred in the Japanese video game Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, appeared on several Japanese movie posters that same year — G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2. These were the last two Hollywood films Lee did prior to the new Terminator.
Below, you can see how Japan’s Red 2 poster (top left) stacks up to the other international versions in its depiction of Lee.
Pictures: 完全ネタバレ
For both posters, Lee was featured on the international versions.
Yes, there’s tension between South Korea and Japan, but honestly, the Korean media latching onto stories like this isn’t doing anything to help mend those tensions, especially when Byung-hun Lee doesn’t appear on the Korean poster, either. Talk about curious and disappointing.
Comments
14 responses to “The Terminator Genisys Poster Shouldn’t Cause Diplomacy Problems”
Perhaps this iteration of the T-1000 has a very minor role in the film because of what – ahem – John Connor appears to be in it.
Is it being alleged that he’s not on (any) of the movie posters because of a race issue? I mean, I think the T-1000 should totally be on the posters, but from the look of (all) of them, it only features the “good guys”.
Talk about a storm in a tea cup. What a non issue.
Asia is a very nationalistic place; the Chinese, Koreans and Japanese don’t exactly have a history of playing nice with each other.
How dare you leave a Korean out?
Typical Asian Nationalist attitude. If their race doesn’t get billing in an American movie, they bitch to high heaven. Remember this is a grouping of countries that had whole scenes added to Iron Man 3 to focus on an Asian character who has no purpose in the film or story as a whole.
Yup, the Aussie movie BAIT was the same… Whole sequences added for Chinese market as most of the film was funded by a Chinese distributor. Heroic Chinese rescue team, all of the female lead friends were Chinese. But hey if it gets your film made…
So a character who is not shown on the international or US posters, bar one stand alone poster that is probably only shown in cinema’s alongside another three posters for the movie, means the Japanese are racist?
k.
Nah this is actually a thing. It’s part of a broader anti-Korean sentiment espoused (historically) by China and Japan. They’ve not been (again, historically) very nice to them at all. You can read more about it here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Korean_sentiment
Oh I’m not doubting there is plenty of racism in that little corner of Asia, but this issue is a total non issue.
I, for one, have absolutely no faith that this film will be any kind of good. It looks terrible.
Maybe once it’s released they’ll be annoyed at the posters that did have Lee?
Gotta be better than the last two at least.
Let’s face it. This is Asia. As an asian, I can tell ya. We all hate each other like its medieval Europe.