While American studios are indeed interested in replicating the successes of East Asian films, they’re less invested in cultural context or in giving opportunities to actors of Asian descent. Hollywood’s reboot and remake culture can pay off, such as with The Ring, The Magnificent Seven, and the aforementioned The Departed. But re-casting stories with specific cultural ties (Oldboy’s obsession with honor and revenge, Ghost in the Shell’s post-World War II technological anxieties) only to prioritize white leads is not a sure box-office bet, and can even backfire for studios. The original Oldboy made $15 million on a $3 million budget and is considered a classic action film, whereas the new Oldboy, starring Josh Brolin, made $4.9 million on a $30 million budget.

When Hollywood does include breakout stars in adaptations of East Asian storylines, the roles tend to be fairly stereotypical. The Oldboy star Choi Min-sik recently appeared in the 2014 film Lucy—as a villain. Lee Byung-hun, another Korean cinema stalwart, was in Terminator: Genysis—as a villain. Zhang Ziyi, who dazzled in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers (and also starred in Rob Marshall’s Memoirs of a Geisha), was last in a Hollywood action film in 2007’s TMNT—voicing a villainous ninja. Despite being successful and even celebrated in their home countries, East Asian actors still pursue Hollywood work because it’s a broader standard of fame and visibility. Yet, instead of capitalizing on the talent and followings these actors bring to the table, these films offer them up as one-way incentives, a way to engage overseas audiences without having to concede the industry’s white icons.

If East Asian actors aren’t playing villains, then they’re often serving as sidekicks to heroic protagonists. The Last Samurai memorably positioned Tom Cruise as the eponymous warrior, with Ken Watanabe taking a supporting role. And in the acclaimed Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s upcoming The Great Wall, Matt Damon is playing the only non-Chinese character in the film’s five central roles, but he was the most prominent face in the film’s promotional rollout. For Chinese filmmakers seeking to break into Hollywood, The Great Wall’s East-West formula could be a stepping stone for other collaborations. But the end result is often that China-set, Chinese-staffed films continue to rely on white faces to front and sell the project. Catherine Hardwicke’s upcoming film Loulan will be a Chinese co-production set in western China in 200 B.C. but the epic romance will be based on the true story of a “Caucasian mummy with European features” that was discovered in the region, meaning it will likely star a white actress.

Casting more mainland Asian actors does not “solve” the issue of East Asian representation, and does in fact have its own challenges—including the language barrier. But a piece in The Hollywood Reporter notes that the career trajectories of the Asian-American stars Maggie Q and Daniel Wu show that it’s possible for actors to have dual appeal: Both are American citizens who went abroad in order to break into Asian cinema markets, and then found crossover success in America, with the CW show Nikita and the Divergent film series (for Q) and AMC’s Into the Badlands (for Wu).