'Cloud Atlas' Slammed for Lack of Asian Actors, 'Yellow Face' Makeup By Advocacy Group

                       "In the modern age of movie make up, it is disturbing to see poorly done Asian eye prosthetics to make Caucasian men look Asian," the Media Action Network for Asian Americans said.

Cloud Atlas may be artistically ambitious, but it's also racially retrograde, according to a blistering new release from the Media Action Network for Asian Americans.

The new film from Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Twyker, based on the 2005 David Mitchell novel, weaves together six storylines, connecting them not only by theme and loose plot strands, but by often using the same actors for multiple roles. As such, in a storyline focused on the year 2144 in South Korea, multiple white male actors are given prosthetic makeup in order to appear Asian.

"Cloud Atlas missed a great opportunity. The Korea story’s protagonist is an Asian man--an action hero who defies the odds and holds off armies of attackers," Guy Aoki, MANAA's founding president, said in a statement. "He’s the one who liberates [a clone played by actress] Doona Bae from her repressive life and encourages her to join the resistance against the government. It would have been a great, stereotype-busting role for an Asian American actor to play, as Asian American men aren’t allowed to be dynamic or heroic very often."

Instead, it is Jim Sturgess who plays that role, while Hugo Weaving and James D'Arcy are also cast as Asian actors. Not only is the MANAA upset about the lack of Asian actors involved, but also at how little they believe was done to transform actors of other races into convincing Asian characters.

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