its not about race. its about the story. http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2008-03-25-jeff-ma-21_N.htm New film '21' counts on the real deal for inspiration By Scott Bowles, USA TODAY LAS VEGAS — Jeff Ma walks past the blackjack tables at the Planet Hollywood casino and grins a little. It wasn't that long ago when, on a good night, he and his buddies could walk away from Vegas with $900,000 in winnings stuffed in a duffel bag. "Sometimes, I do miss it," Ma says, glancing at dealers who eye him as if he's a shoplifter about to shove something in his jacket. "How do you not miss making that much money with a little bit of math?" Of course, that "little bit of math" has gotten Ma and his former classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology banned from about every blackjack table in Vegas. And thanks in part to the group's profitable experiment in card counting — which took casinos for millions in the mid-1990s — your face is videotaped and run against a database of known counters when you walk into the city's more hawkish casinos. Ma, now 35 and an Internet gambling personality in San Francisco, seems equally proud and defensive about the group's legacy, which gets the Hollywood treatment Friday in 21. "There was nothing we did that was against the law," he says. "We just had a system that worked, and that's not what the casinos are about. For a while there, we were the kings of this place." Whether 21 will rule theaters is a riskier bet. Gambling pictures — particularly those that center on cards — typically are more art-house favorites than cineplex seat-fillers. In 2003, The Cooler was a hit with critics but took in only $8 million. The 2000 blackjack drama Croupier earned $6 million. Even with stars such as Matt Damon and Edward Norton, 1998's poker film Rounders did a modest $23 million. But 21 director Robert Luketic wagers that gambling is hotter now with college kids and young professionals. "You've got poker tournaments on TV, and I think a lot of kids see Vegas not so much as a way to make money, but for socializing. We wanted to make a movie more about that lifestyle." Luketic says many card films "focused too much on the hardware, the mechanics of gambling." "Unless you're a participant, blackjack is not a spectator sport," he says. "You have to personalize the gamblers. They had double lives, studying at MIT, then jetting off to Vegas and Monte Carlo. They could turn it on instantly. They were walking computers." Ma doesn't look part cyborg. Tall and easygoing, he became the real-life inspiration for Bringing Down the House, the Ben Mezrich book that became a 2002 best seller. Ma, a junior and quantitative analysis whiz at MIT, was hoping to enter med school when he was recruited by two classmates in 1994 into a card-counting system that was untraceable for years. Card counting isn't illegal; casinos just refuse service the way an upscale restaurant can to underdressed patrons. The MIT students stymied casinos by working as a team. In short: One student played the minimum bet at a blackjack table, counting how many high and low cards were being dealt. If a table was "hot," with high cards still in the deck, the student signaled a partner, who would place single-hand bets as high as $10,000. Though deft card counting increases your odds by only about 3%, "that makes a big difference in what you can make," Ma says. "It's pretty simple math." Simple for Ma. "He'd try to teach me how to count, and my eyes would glaze," says Jim Sturgess, who plays Ma in the film. "He's a (expletive) walking Pentium chip." And for nearly seven years, a pretty rich chip. Ma and his team routinely flew to Vegas on weekends with more than $100,000 stuffed in their jeans. Usually, they flew back with more. One evening, Ma says, he and his buddies decided to take a swim at the MGM casino, but they couldn't decide what to do with the $900,000 in their worn duffel bag. (They chucked it under a pool chair.) Ma and the 21 cast spent weeks traveling to Vegas to watch high-stakes gamblers, though the stars say that only Ma seemed to understand the mentality of laying down thousands on a single hand. "I don't gamble. I don't do any of that," says Laurence Fishburne, who plays a casino muscle man who ultimately cracks the scheme. "Life is risky enough." Sturgess, too, found something a bit disheartening in his first trip last year to Sin City. "It can be depressing," he says. "You're watching a room full of people losing their hard-earned money." Of course, those gamblers aren't being comped posh suites in Vegas, as Ma and his cohorts were. (The other students, whose real names were not used in either the book or movies, could not be reached.) Though Ma says the movie captures the MIT crew's camaraderie, 21 takes plenty of liberties. It has the students hunted by men who drag counters into casino basements to pummel and ban them. In real life, Ma left because video technology was catching up with the team, and "I didn't want to be known as the blackjack guy for the rest of my life." He is now the host of Jeff Ma's Wild World of Gambling on the website DoublePlaytv.com. He also isn't British, as is his on-screen counterpart, Sturgess. Sturgess says he was concerned about whether Ma, who is of Chinese descent, would be upset by Hollywood's ethnic change. "But he was very funny about it," Sturgess says. "When we first met, he said, 'You look exactly like me.' Then we went to the top of the Palms to smoke cigars and get to know each other. We realized how similar we really are, from the films and music we like to experiences when we were drunk with girls." Ma, who has a cameo as a dealer, says he was more concerned with having an actor who captured his personality and the dynamic between his friends. "I would have been a lot more insulted if they had chosen someone who was Japanese or Korean, just to have an Asian playing me," Ma says. Ma won't say exactly how much cash he got away with, though he says he still does "pretty well" and is being recruited for other online gaming sites. "When I focus on something, I can usually do OK." One bet he isn't taking, though, is on box office prospects. "That's something I have to admit I don't know much about yet, but I'd give us 50-50 odds of being a hit." If anyone is confident of the movie's future, it's Sturgess. "Normally, I get nervous before a movie opens," he says. "But if this doesn't do well, I'll just hang out with Jeff, and we'll get all our money back."
Not sure about this movie, but if you look into race and movie roles, look no further than Jet lee's Hollywood movies and Chinese-produced movies. Jet lee's roles in Hollywood movies were mostly bad guys, villains. In fact, I can't remember he acted as a good guy in a lead role. In contrary, in his Chinese/Hongkong produced movies, he were always the good guy/hero in lead action. Jacky Chang can act as good guy, mostly because he produces his own movies. And now that he has carved out a niche in the U.S. market, he can now act as a co-lead as good guy with some goofy-ness. I'll say it's mostly market driven. Or, so the producers thought.
Sigh, you should be at least somewhat sure about something before you make a statement like that Jet Li was both the good guy and bad guy in The One. He was the good guy in Cradle to Grave Kiss of the Dragon Romeo Must Die War Danny the Dog aka Unleashed (I don't know if this counts as a US or British or French) Movies where he was the villain Lethal Weapon 4 Now, I agree that it's wrong of them to change the characters from asians to white, but once I read that the main guy wasn't bothered by it at all then I really stopped carring. I still don't plan to see the movie, I'd like to read the book because the story sounds interesting as hell, but you can see that changing the race of the characters wasn't the only thing done here as I'm sure they were never taken down into a casino basement where they were wailed on by Casino security.
There are many instances the instruments of something . . are ok with it Step N Fetchit, etc Just because the person involved in something is ok with it does not mean . . .that it is ok I mean . . . When folx looking at Asian Role Models and not enough Asians .. .in films what does it say to an Asian Actor when he cannot even get a part playing an Asian??? How many times have a white person been played by a non-white person? Could you see Denzel Playing John Adams? Jet Li Playing . . . Lincoln? Rocket River
Maybe bad guy isn't the perfect word, should I say darker role? Lethal Weapon 4, villain Romeo Must Die, gagnster The One, superhuman criminal war, assassin Rogue Unleashed, slave/killer only Kiss of the Dragon is the traditional positive hero role mostly played by white male. Now compare that to his roles in Chinese films both prior to his hollywood efforts and recent ones(hero, fearless): They are a lot more traditional sunny hero roles, with only exception being the recent Warlords. In reality, there just isn't a lot of room for Asian actors as traditional hero aka Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson etc. You don't think this has something to do with demographics?
in the 1987 Batman, Billy Dee Williams played Harvey Dent (two face). the comic book character is white, Billy Dee Williams is Lando Calrisian.
Definitely read the book. I can't stand to read, and I find most books too dull to finish. I finished this book in 3-4 days.
I'm bothered by the fact that Morgan Freeman played an Irishman named "Red" of all possible names in The Shawshank Redemption. Watch me whine and complain. Oh wait, I don't care.
It pissed me off as a huge Michael Crichton fan that Rising Sun was so bad they had to change white Peter Smith to black Webster Smith (played by Wesley Snipes) The book was about the differences between east and west and the racist accusations made way more sense in the book. If they would have just changed the guy to black thats fine but adding the scene where the japanese gansters are owned by street thugs was totally crap and made the movie a joke.
You guys are right .. .these are all real people real white folx that were played by black folx. . . well . .wait. . . they are not. . they are fictional characters Rocket River Yea. . . references to Wesley's character being black as well as Will Smith's whole. . i'm black scene in Wild Wild West [him and the no legged guy trading racial/handicap barbs ] was very distracting and added nothing to the movies
river, if you are so bothered by the fact that the character of the movie is not that of the real person, then why don't you protest? i mean, i haven't heard any news of besides one blog or article about anyone pissed off about it. no pissed off asian actors, no pissed off asian movie goers, no pissed off asian card counters, no pissed off people in china or korea or taiwan or tibet..well pissed off tibetans but not about this movie!
To the people saying that they only did this because they would make more money, is that not racial discrimination? It may not be outright racism but it doesn't justify it either. What puzzles me most is that this is based on a real person. If this was a fictional story it wouldn't be a big deal but the actual guy is Asian. Thats like casting an Asian guy as George Young in the movie Blow. What if they casted a Black guy playing Spiderman? I bet folks would make a big deal over that. This may not be along the lines of casting a White guy to play a Kung Fu master but still. Why not give an Asian lead a chance? The sad part about all this is that its somewhat true. White America doesn't want to see an all minority cast. Seriously, when was the last time you saw an Asian lead role that wasn't an action movie or comedy? The last serious Asian role I can remember was the Killing Fields. He wasn't even the lead, I believe he was a supporting actor in the movie. Asians have yet to be given a chance to break the mold like Denzel and Halle. The same can be said about Hispanics. In fact, I think a big reason why Asians are so absent in mainstream media is because they think Asians, specifically males, can't "sell".
I think that Li played what you considered to be "darker roles" because it's hard to play something light or super heroic when you're a completely badass fighter and can just decimate people. You picked a bad example with Li though when comparing him to Willis or Gibson. One of the best aspects of any action hero is their ability to deliver hilarious quips after doing something particularly cool or violent, which keeps things "light". Jet Li, one, still doesn't speak perfect English, so his delivery will never be as smooth, and two...he just doesn't come across as funny.
In America it does. If they preformed some kind of poll that said that with an all white cast with Kevin Spacey would bring in an extra $50 million in the box office you better believe the producer will be looking for an all white cast. Hollywood money makers got a hold of this book and are doing everything they can to milk every dollar they can out of it. If the writer of the book didn't want this stuff to happen he should have sold the rights to some director that would have made an Indy film out of it. The writer is as much to blame about this as Hollywood because he's trying to make as much as possible as well.
While you're post may have some truth, there is no way to justify racial discrimination. From business stand point, If the lead role was Tom Cruise or Brad Pit, I'd understand. But the lead is played by Jim Sturgess, basically a new/unknown actor. What makes him a bigger draw than an Asian actor? Then again, it is a White America so he probably would draw more based on his skin color, which is sad. I don't really buy the whole "Asians aren't marketable" theory. How do you know if an Asian lead can't draw if you never give it a chance? Hollywood said Bruce Lee (Kung Fu) wouldn't sell but Americans loved his movies (Enter the Dragon). Tyler Perry has proved that you can use a minority cast and market to a certain race and still rank in lots of dough. Although, I believe Asians have a long way to go to get where Blacks in Hollywood are today. Hollywood had a chance to cater to the Asian-American crowd with this movie but passed.
I think some of the problem is, besides the fact Asian Americans represent a smaller number of people, is African Americans really support films made by other black people starring black people. I'm not sure whether Asians would follow suit in the same fashion.
Nah, It's called movie and acting. He can play underdog in a positive role too, he can play hurt, whatever, as manifested by his Hong Kong produced films. Jet li can be quite funny, if you watch Once Upon A Time in China (1,2,3,4), and Fong Sai-yuk, and Tai Chi Master, He had some very funny interactions with leading actresses. Language on the other hand is a bigger problem.
