From Paris With Love…and some hilarious racism!

By Deputy Editor Thea Lim

Is it a new trend in trailers to highlight comic genius and audacity, by showing just a little bit of racism? First we had the Up in the Air trailer, and now this:

From Paris With Love stars John Travolta (apparently in a reprise of his Face/Off role, plus a keffiyeh) as Charlie Wax, and the adorable little fellow from Bend it Like Beckham as his sidekick. Midway through the trailer, our two leads find themselves in a classic Chinatown fight scene. I blanch at the sight of Charlie Wax using the East Asian waiter’s “oriental” uniform to choke him, and some other shots of things emblazoned with dragons and a Ming vase…

But it’s nothing to write about. That bad feeling in the pit of my stomach is just your regular, knee-jerk (and hey, maybe not-so-justifiable) response to seeing one of my own get pulped by a member of the dominant culture.

And then my most paranoid suspicions are confirmed at 1:05, when Wax’s sidekick asks him in the middle of the Chinatown fight scene

How many more of them do you think there are?

referring to the malevolent employees of the Chinese restaurant.

Wax shrugs, there’s a cut to a women in a cheongsam, and then Wax says

My sense is…about a billion?

Classy.