G.I. Joe's Byung-Hun Lee and the future of Asian stars in Hollywood

Lee arrives at the premiere of "G.I. Joe" in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Matt Sayles)

Pulling in over $100 million domestically to date, G.I. Joe has already made a nice dent in the American market. Meant to start a media franchise, the action film stars Channing Tatum and Marlon Wayans but features a number of recognizable faces including Joseph Gordon Levitt, Sienna Miller, and Dennis Quaid.  Possibly the most interesting casting is South Korean actor Byung-Hun Lee as Storm Shadow, a diabolical villain well trained in martial arts.

While American audiences may not be familiar with Lee, the popular South Korean actor is famous in his native country as a successful film and TV star. The actor put his name on the map when he starred in Chan Wook Park's highly-successful JSA (Joint Security Area), a film about clandestine meetings between North and South Koreans in Korea's DMZ. In addition to a number of television dramas, Lee recently starred in the action packed so-called Kimchi Western The Good, The Bad, The Weird in which Lee plays a highly capable, and once-again diabolical, assassin.

South Korean pop singer Jung Ji-hoon, aka Rain (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)

Anyone watch the Colbert Report? If you watch Stephen Colbert's satirical political TV show, you may be familiar with Korean pop icon Rain. Colbert, always a fan of creating fictional rivalries, issued a music video challenge to the Korean singer after Rain ranked more popular in a Time magazine most influential people reader poll, in what has become a recurring segment in the show.

Rain is known as a famous singer and dancer within South Korea. However, the actor may be able to make more of a name for himself in the U.S. with a budding acting career in Hollywood. Those who watched Speed Racer may remember Rain as rival racer Taejo Togokahn. While Speed Racer failed at the box office, Rain's shot at Hollywood is not over. Rain plays the lead role in the Wachowski Brothers-produced action film Ninja Assassin, set for release in late November of this year. Clearly, a lead role is a far more significant break than the very secondary role than Rain had earlier in Speed Racer. The Hollywood Reporter has stated that Warner Bros. has offered Rain the starring role in the upcoming remake of Bruce Lee's hit kung-fu film Enter the Dragon, though Rain has reportedly not decided whether he is taking the role.  

So what's the future for Asian stars in Hollywood? For stars unfamiliar to Americans like K-pop Rain and Korean star Byung-Hun Lee, much of their ability to make it in the U.S. film industry depends on their ability to get cast in mainstream films that do well financially. 

So why Korean stars? In a recent article, The Hollywood Reporter mused that the recent decision to include Asian pop icons such as Lee and Korean singer Rain may be an effort to rope in larger audiences abroad in Asia. While this line of thought is certainly sound, the inclusion of these foreign stars may also within plump up film attendance domestically as there are over a million and a half Koreans living in the U.S. While this is a small percentage of the U.S. population, it still suggests that we shouldn't just look at this in terms of foreign markets. Putting famous Korean actors in small roles in films will bring in a new audience while in no way detracting from the film's overall marketability.