Instead of doing two sites, each on a different country, I chose to critique two sites, one on entertainment in Asia, and the other on entertainment in the United States starring Asian-Americans.
ASIAN-AMERICAN ENTERTAINMENT
Beyond
The website is at least testament to the fact that Asian-American actresses have some pretty rabid fans. Says one commentor on the Beyond Hollywood site: "Here she [Yunjin Kim] is in the latest 2007 issue of Maxim looking goooooooood. Not just 'good', but 'gooooooooood'."
The website also features other celebs such as Kelly Hu, Michelle Kwan, Lucy Liu, and even a half Asian starlet named Kristin Kreuk.
Speaking of Lucy Liu, she seems at the top of the Asian-American acting scene, and the lone one at that. I'm glad to see Yunjin Kim featured in a mainstream mag like Maxim, but the question in my mind remains: How far have Asian-Americans come since the first prominent Asian actress Anna May Wong came on the scene? http://thetyee.ca/Entertainment/2004/03/23/Where_are_Asians_on_Screen/
Even then, Wong played all the Asian stereotypes: "Dragon lady, lotus blossom, seductress...during her film career, which began more than 80 years ago, during the silent film era. More often than not, the characters she portrayed were killed, by either murder or suicide." This analysis comes from a second site, which I found useful for an article that looked critically at Asian-Americans in film 
today -- have they really made inroads into the industry?
No, says the article. "None of the actresses in The Joy Luck Club are working in mainstream Hollywood films, not unless you count Ming-Na as the voice of Mulan in Disney's animated film Mulan and its upcoming sequel...In U.S. cinema today, only one Asian American actress seems to be working regularly - Lucy Liu."
And then follows a fascinating analysis of the roles that Liu has played: dominatrix, detective, and secret agent -- not all that diverse. The diversity of options to Asian-American actors looks grim.
In any case, right now we shall remain easily satiated with more pretty pictures of women:
ENTERTAINMENT IN ASIA
I'm not particularly obsessed with those hunky actors or doe-eyed pop singers that come a dime a dozen (albeit some are more lasting, like Boa and Zhang Ziyi), so I looked for a site that would give me an overview of what's hot now.
Amped Asia (http://www.ampedasia.com/) is an excellent place to start. Lots of titillating photos, of course:
This is of Panward Hemmanee, a new-ish Thai actresss. Her legs strike me as waifishly skinny, but wait -- we're in Asia, I forget: everyone is expected to be Kate Moss bony. The site is aethetically advanced, but all they had to do was include lots of high-quality photos of celebrities. It's easy to be a website when you're not talking about the oil crisis, nuclear weapons, wrinkly politicians or environmentalism.
Women of all shapes and sizes, I'm happy to say, are featured: from the typical impossibly skinny Asian figure to a more busty one:
The main page displays a very useful Top Five Most Viewed Babes and Top Five Most Viewed Hunks, which allowed me to get up to speed on the Asia entertainment scene in a glance: yes, Boa is still hot, at Number Two.
The writing, though terrible, could be effective in surprising ways (law of unintended consequences?). The review on Peach Girl, a Taiwanese TV drama series, is pure summary rather than a bona-fide review. However, by summarizing the plot (girl named "Xiao Tao" or "Little Peach" pursued by two boys -- one the guy she liked since high school and the other a newcomer, a troublemaking playboy), it made me want to watch it even more...if only because I'm a sucker for formulaic love stories starring cute boys and girls.
Some of the writing lacks clarity; with the open nature of the website (where anyone can post articles or comments), you get the good with the bad: the insightful bits with rocky sentence structure: "Although this series is different than some of the other ones, it is well worth watching for people who like school romances and a story based on revenge, jealousy, love, and friendship." And the recommendation at the end is tepid at best: "Overall, I would have to say the series is worth a watch." It's posted by Roger, and I figure English is his second language, for better or worse.
HOKAY. More pictures:
Uh-oh, I think in the course of my research for this posting, I've fallen newly in infatuation with Daniel Henney, a "South Korean/British actor and model." Questions abound: is he actually ethnically half Korean, half white? The profile on him is relatively short and unhelpful. But "he has often been praised by directors of his mastery of languages and accents." Perhaps it doesn't matter if he's ethnically British, I think to myself: as long as he works the accent!
Amped Asia also hosts discussion threads that display the attitudes of those who follow Asia entertainment culture. One post criticizes "Zhang Ziyi, most pitiful actress," reinforcing the rumor that she's not popular in her home country China. It's unfortunate that she should be judged so harshly by other Asians in Asia by perhaps jealous, morally traditional onlookers. There seems less intense criticism coming from Asians in the U.S., since at worse, most people I talk to seem to have a lukewarm reaction to her, instead of a hatefu one. Apparently, "most Chinese people look down on women who are t
oo aggressive in pursuit of fame and fortune. Zhang Ziyi's quick rising in showbiz is considered as rampant careerism."One respondent posted a scathing observation: "Is it jus
t me, or does she always take up the roles where she gets all dirty with a guy? I was shocked to see her keeping her clothes on for the most part in MoG [Memoirs of a Geisha]." Can't a girl just be sexy without becoming a pariah?http://www.ampedasia.com/forums/showthread.php?tid=2560&pid=26632#pid26632
Also informative were the occasional articles on Asia entertainment containing a societal spin, this one on plastic surgery in Korea. No doubt the young (or old) women in Korea are influenced by the pretty, clone-like singers and actoresses, all bearing the same double eyelids, tummy tuck, and boob jobs. http://www.ampedasia.com/forums/show
thread.phptid=2549&pid=26424#pid26424The article is excerpted from Chosun, one of the three major newspapers in Korea; it contains numerical data on cosmetic surgery in Korea. Surgery is incredibly prevalent in Korea, which I already knew: my Korean friends tell me that eyelid surgery is the most common. ("Double eyelids" are considered almost a must-have, and the procedure is so often done that it's relatively quick and risk-free.) Statistics on Korean women are shocking: "As to whether cosmetic surgery is necessary, 72.6 percent of respondents said it should be done if needed, while only 20.4% said it should be avoided if possible." This is the sad truth. The female exterior is considered so important in Korean society that it becomes a source of stress for women. It sounds like the United States but a touch worse, maybe.
"Asked to identify which areas of their appearance they were most dissatisfied with, 17.1 percent said their lower body, followed by the abdomen (14.6 percent), body weight (12.5 percent), height (11.6 percent), skin (11.1 percent), face (9.6 percent), and upper body (9.5 percent)."
And we thought Hollywood was bad.
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