In South Korea, several major media outlets have pointed out the same thing: the Japanese Terminator Genisys poster does not feature Korean actor Byung-hun Lee.
Below, you can see the newly revealed Japanese poster:
No Byung-hun Lee.
Via The Korea Times, the country’s oldest English language newspaper, here’s how this is being reported in an article titled “Japanese Terminator poster leaves out Korean actor”:
A Japanese poster for the upcoming Hollywood action blockbuster “Terminator: Genisys” has omitted Korean actor Byung-hun Lee, who has a supporting role in the film.
The poster shows the main cast, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke and Jai Courtney — but not Lee, who plays a terminator cyborg T-1000.
Why Japan has omitted Lee is a mystery. In 2013, Japan featured him on a poster for the Hollywood action movie “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” in which the actor, 44, played ninja bodyguard Storm Shadow. Lee and American action star Bruce Willis were on the poster...
Similar stories have appeared on numerous Korean news sites, such as Movie Daum, Stoo.com, Segye and more, which mention the “curiosity” and “disappointment” that Lee isn’t included on the Japanese poster.
I guess the implication is that Lee isn’t being featured because of South Korean and Japan’s rocky relationship?
But...the actor doesn’t appear on the official international poster:
What’s more, many the posters in the U.S. and abroad don’t feature Lee:
This art doesn’t even features Schwarzenegger.
There is a T-1000 character poster in the U.S. that features Lee, but he doesn’t seem to appear in any group shots for posters released in the U.S. and abroad.
Here is said character poster for the U.S. (Note that Japan hasn’t gotten any character posters yet.)
As The Korea Times points out, Lee was featured on the G.I. Joe: Retaliation poster in Japan in 2013. But that wasn’t a great year for relations between the two countries, because that year saw headlines like “Bad Feelings Dominate Japan-South Korea Public Sentiment” and “A Growing Chill Between South Korea and Japan Creates Problems for the U.S.”
[Photo: GiantBomb]
Lee, who previously starred in the Japanese video game Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, appeared on several Japanese movie posters that same year—G.I. Joe: Retaliation and Red 2. These were the last two Hollywood films Lee did prior to the new Terminator.
Below, you can see how Japan’s Red 2 poster (top left) stacks up to the other international versions in its depiction of Lee.
[Image via 完全ネタバレ]
For both posters, Lee was featured on the international versions.
Yes, there’s tension between South Korea and Japan, but honestly, the Korean media latching onto stories like this isn’t doing anything to help mend those tensions, especially when Byung-hun Lee doesn’t appear on the Korean poster, either. Talk about curious and disappointing.
To contact the author of this post, write to bashcraftATkotaku.com or find him on Twitter@Brian_Ashcraft.
Kotaku East is your slice of Asian internet culture, bringing you the latest talking points from Japan, Korea, China and beyond. Tune in every morning from 4am to 8am.