The Wolverine's Rila Fukushima Joins Ghost in the Shell
Concerns over whitewashing surrounding the live-action adaptation of seminal Manga Ghost in the Shell haven’t abated since Scarlett Johansson was cast in the lead.
Hollywood hardly has a good track record when it comes to casting Asian actors and actresses in parts you would assume would keep the same race as the character. Even with the presence of Takeshi Kitano as Johansson’s boss the criticism hasn’t calmed down. With the film already in production, it’s hard not to see the casting of The Wolverine's Rila Fukushima as an attempt to address the lack of diversity in the cast.
That’s not to say she isn’t a fine actress, she’s impressed in the likes of Game Of Thrones and Arrow, joins a cast that also includes Pilou Asbaek, Juliette Binoche, Michael Pitt, Chin Han, Kaori Momoi, Yukata Izumihara and Joseph Naufahu; it’s just hard not to see this as a reaction to the controversy – the criticism has perhaps done some good.
Rupert Sanders is directing the sci-fi action thriller, which adapts Masamune Shirow’s original 1989 manga. Johansson is starring as a female special ops cyborg at the head of an elite task force known as Section 9 commanded by Kitano's Daisuke Aramaki. The team, working for Hanka Robotics, is in charge of stopping dangerous criminals and extremists, and their prime target is The Laughing Man, a terrorist dedicated to wiping out all of Hanka’s cyber technology.
Ghost in The Shell will be out in the UK on March 31 next year.
