CVK
Interesting that director Greg Pak was just talking about wanting to see Keanu Reeves play an Asian-American character one day. CHUD.com reports that Keanu will be playing Sinbad (yes, the sailor) in director Rob Cohen’s “The 8th Voyage of Sinbad.” No, it’s not an Asian character but he will be portraying someone of Arab descent–and it’ll be the first time he plays someone “ethnic” since Bertolucci’s 1993 film “Little Buddha”. Here’s CHUD.com’s take on it:

Arab, huh? Does Keanu even have the look for this? I guess he did “pull off” Siddhartha in Little Buddha… but then again, Keanu is part Asian (which can’t be said of previous Sinbads Patrick Wayne or John Phillip Law). Well, whatever — the bigger concern in my mind is that Rob Cohen, the helmer/inflicter of the spy classic XXX and rice-rocket opus The Fast and the Furious got attached to this thing.

But back to the film itself, Reeves as the scimitar-wielding Sinbad is said to venture out on a grand voyage — set in eighth-century China — with his fellow shipmates on a quest to find the Lamp of Aladdin (obnoxious blue genie not included). On their little trip, they encounter a gorgeous empress, battle huge CG monsters, and tangle with a Chinese general whose supernatural powers will no doubt harken back to the greatness that is Big Trouble in Little China.