As a young Asian American male, it’s only right I keep up on the current list of Asian Hollywood studs such as the Daniel Dae Kims and the John Chos. However let us look back to past decades and pay homage to those ass-kicking, love-making Asian men who rep’d for us back in the day. Most of the studs listed have had an on-screen love interest and were born before 1960. Sirs, we tip our hats to you.
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1. Bruce Lee
Maybe he didn’t have many on-screen love interests, but Bruce is an icon because he’s the complete package. If you watch his famous interview on the Pierre Berton Show, you’ll see Bruce shattering stereotypes with his super-cool demeanor and philosophical ideas all the while having a sophisticated but thick Hong Kong accent. He was smart, cool, dangerous and very Chinese. RIP.
2. Russell Wong
Russell is that Asian actor that every woman can find attractive. His crossover appeal is definitely due to the fact he’s half White and half Chinese. He speaks Chinese and knows martial arts, but looks western enough where he being Asian is a non-issue. There’s no wonder this guy has stuck in Hollywood for so long, he can play roles of multiple ethnicities.
3. Jackie Chan
You might not think of Jackie Chan as a hunk, but undoubtedly the world has grown to love this guy. For decades, he’s been providing us with family friendly, but skillfully entertaining movies. Although those days of bone breaking stunts are behind him, he continues to make great movies and do wonderful things around the world. (Side note: his son Jaycee is one the biggest stars in Taiwan and HK Editor’s Note: a little bit of an overstatement here. – Lance)
4. Sessue Hayakawa
Sessue died before most of us were born, but this he was as much as an Asian hunk as you could’ve been back in the 1920s. He was one the highest paid actors of his time and was nominated for an Academy Award. Upon that it’s said that he was the “romantic idol to millions of American women” at the height of his career. Back then, he was already putting Asians on the map!
5. Tony Leung Ka Fai
In the 1992 film, The Lover, Tony Leung plays a wealthy business man who has an extremely intense love affair with a beautiful young French woman. Aside from sex-filled this movie Tony continues to play roles as the clean, cut, handsome Asian guy in both movies in America and overseas.
6. Chow Yun Fat
At a time when most Asians (and Chuck Norris) were using martial arts to solve problems, Chow Yun Fat let his 9mm do the work. This guy has no problem shooting people up which makes him a complete bad-ass due to the lack of gun-slinging Asians in Hollywood. But Chow Yun Fat is actually a very good actor and continues to do movies both overseas and here in America.
7. Ken Watanabe
Ken is very well respected in Hollywood amongst all actors and has played major roles in blockbusters like Last Samurai, Memoirs of a Geisha and now Inception. “The Gorgeous Ken Watanabe” characters are usually always honorable, cool, respectable and smart.
8. Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
I know this guy as Johnny Tsunami, but apparently in the movie Rising Sun, he eats sushi off the torso of a naked blonde woman, that alone is enough to nab him a spot on this list. I might rent that movie just to watch that scene.
9. Jet Li
Sorry, Jet, the on-screen romance between you and the beautiful Aaliyah was unconvincing, but nevertheless it was nice to see it was attempted. For such a brilliant martial artist with terrible English to appear on screen and in music videos as her love interest, is saying something. Too bad they probably didn’t hook up.
10. Dustin Nguyen
From 1987-90 Dustin Nguyen played a main role in a popular crime drama 21 Jump Street. Since then he’s worked with Pamela Anderson and gained numerous spots on lots of television shows. His career didn’t quite take flight like his old crime fighting co-star, Johnny Depp, but he was the first Asian American a lot of people watched kick ass on television.
Written by Editorial Staff