John Cho, Star Trek Movie Lift Off on Friday

Harry Mok
May 5, 2009

Both articles are featured on our homepage. I know I'm looking forward to seeing Cho take over the role of Sulu (originally played by George Takei) and how J.J. Abrams reboots the Star Trek franchise.

In the Hyphen interview, Cho talks about filling Takei's shoes and his experience playing Harold in the Harold and Kumar movies.

Star Trek is the cover story for the latest Entertainment Weekly, and apparently one of Sulu's biggest scenes in the movie involves a sword fight. "That's all we know from the TV series -- he fences," Cho says in his only quote of the article.

In Hyphen's Spaces Issue, we examined race (including the original Sulu's fencing scene) and Star Trek in my story. While Star Trek's casts have been diverse by Hollywood standards, the portrayals of people of color on the shows and movies have been stereotypical in many respects.

If all goes as planned, I'm going to an advance screening of Star Trek on Wednesday. I'll post afterward and let you know if Abrams pulls it off.

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Harry Mok

Editor in chief

Editor in Chief Harry Mok wrote about growing up on a Chinese vegetable farm for the second issue of Hyphen and has been a volunteer editor since 2004. As a board member of the San Francisco and New York chapters of the Asian American Journalists Association, Harry has recruited and organized events for student members. He holds a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also a graduate student instructor in the Asian American Studies Department.

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Comments

Comments

lizzbert wrote on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 9:55am
Sulu's fencing prowess is mentioned in this Star Trek movie review: http://www.tfaw.com/blog/2009/05/04/the-new-star-trek-movie-is-frickin-amazing/Cho does an excellent job.
Harry Mok wrote on Tue, 05/05/2009 - 3:27pm
Unfortunately, I won't be able to go to the screening. If anyone out there has seen an early screening, like the one in Austin, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Harry Mok wrote on Wed, 05/06/2009 - 4:47pm
Here's an interview with John Cho at TrekMovie.com. Sounds like Sulu gets some action scenes.
J C L wrote on Sun, 05/10/2009 - 6:24am
just saw opening day at IMAX. very very impressive!! i have to say thatCho's Sulu is probably the best character, just because he has made the character his own, and not just copied the original series.
Nomad wrote on Sun, 05/10/2009 - 12:23pm
the new Star Trek freakin rocks; love the new energy and and more "youthful" feel
Andy wrote on Fri, 05/15/2009 - 11:03am
New Star Trek: great. Mr. Cho's take on Sulu: better.Read an interview with Mr. Cho somewhere where he mentioned it was important for him to "maintain Sulu's masculinity." Considering he gets one of the few action sequences that belonged to someone other THAN the Great White Hope, Kirk, yes, he did.Also, apparently, Abrams was "concerned" about casting a Korean American as a Japanese American and brought this up with Mr. Cho. (Bravo, Mr. Abrams!)Takei was cool with it, apparently.