Spotlight on James Shigeta

Tall, dark, handsome, and modest, James Shigeta is in the minds of many the embodiment of the modern Asian American male. This year the Festival is proud to present a spotlight on this illustrious actor, who will join us in-person for a retrospective of a career now in its fifth decade.

Born in 1933, the Nisei son of a Honolulu contractor, James Shigeta majored in English at New York University, with early career aspirations in teaching or writing. After a stint in the U.S. Marines during the Korean War, he first came into the limelight when he won national recognition on THE TED MACK AMATEUR HOUR, (an early version of AMERICAN IDOL; other Ted Mack discoveries included Pat Boone and Ann-Margret). This led to headlining his own song-and-dance revue in Las Vegas, “Holiday in Japan.”

Hollywood at this time was still dominated by the major studios which had the machinery in place to discover and groom new talent for "stardom." Las Vegas was emerging as the place to see talent on the hoof, as it were. He came to the attention of Paramount Pictures, and received an offer to appear in a Western to be directed by James Clavell, best known today for his cross-cultural novels Taipan and Shogun.

As is sometimes the case, while preparing for one film, Shigeta found work in another, THE CRIMSON KIMONO, written, produced, and directed by Samuel Fuller, that first-rate auteur of gritty tabloid noir films. Shigeta co-stars as Joe Kojaku, a Japanese American detective in Los Angeles who’s following a murder case in little Tokyo while involved in a bi-racial friendship-and-romance triangle with fellow cop Glenn Corbett and crime witness Victoria Shaw, respectively.
Shigeta’s performance was focused and edgy, with a surprising degree of menace and restrained anger, earning him a Golden Globe as “New Star of the Year.”

Less than a year later, Clavell’s WALK LIKE A DRAGON was released, a cross-cultural, East-meets-Western with Shigeta playing a Chinese immigrant caught up in a love-and-honor triangle with co-stars Jack (“Book ‘Em Dano”) lord and Nobu McCarthy. Shigeta’s Cheng Lu is taciturn and proud, unwilling to play the passive coolie. Rarely screened today, WALK LIKE A DRAGON is especially interesting for the way it uses the conventions of the Western to comment on contemporary attitudes.

Shigeta’s quintessential role was in the film version of FLOWER DRUM SONG (SFIAAFF ‘02), the paean to the promise of melting pot America. Playing the American-born son of an old-world Chinatown patriarch, Shigeta’s Wang Ta represents the emerging Asian American model minority, struggling to bridge two very different cultures. For Wang Ta, this dilemma is delightfully personified by Nancy Kwan and Miyoshi Umeki, with whom he sings, dances and romances.
Blessed with a rich baritone, it certainly didn’t hurt Shigeta to have had a Rodgers and Hammerstein score to work with.

Appearing in three films in 1961, including CRY FOR HAPPY, with Glen Ford, and the aforementioned FLOWER DRUM SONG, Shigeta’s finest performance could be in BRIDGE TO THE SUN, opposite Carroll Baker. Directed by French director Etienne Perier, BRIDGE TO THE SUN was based on the best selling memoir by Gwen Terasaki, a Caucasian American who married a Japanese diplomat posted in the United States and returned with him to Japan after
Pearl Harbor. As Hidenari “Terry” Terasaki, Shigeta had a terrific role in which to display his considerable romantic appeal, as well as the stoic heroism of a man of peace caught between warring states.

His later work includes PARADISE, HAWAIIAN STYLE (as Elvis’ homeboy), MIDWAY (1976), a brief but memorable role in DIE HARD (1988), the voice of General Li in Disney’s animated feature MULAN (1998), and dozens of television guest appearances. In 2004 James Shigeta and Nancy Kwan, in recognition of their pioneering work in film, received the Visionary Award by the preeminent Asian American theatre group East-West Players. 

The romantic lead roles that Shigeta appeared in during the early 60’s were afterwards rarely, if ever, offered to Asian American males. Only in recent films, like CHARLOTTE SOMETIMES (SFIAAFF ’03), have there been opportunities for romantic Asian male leads of the type Shigeta pioneered, making his contributions—and this retrospective—all the more striking. Please join us for the screenings of three of the actor’s greatest roles, as well as an onstage interview with Shigeta himself, conducted by the noted filmmaker Arthur Dong (FORBIDDEN CITY, USA), who is currently finishing a feature-length documentary on Chinese Americans in Hollywood.

—Stephen Gong

Spotlight made possible through support from the Academy Foundation.

Photographs from “The Chinese in Hollywood Project” Collection. Courtesy of Arthur Dong and DeepFocus Productions, Inc. For more information: www.deepfocusproductions.com