I've always wondered about this one. Why do we expect an American actor playing a German to speak English in the movie with a German accent? Since he'd be speaking German rather than English, why does a fake German accent make it more believable?
Also what in the heck does a Mongolian accent sound like? Would you know a realistic one if you heard it?
Agreed. but whats even worse is when half the cast attempts bad accents and the others don’t even bother.
To your first point, John Wayne played best only characters who were depicted as American. Period.
As to your second question, I was deployed to Central Asia and spoke with Uzbeks, Tadjiks, Kyrgyz and Kazakhs. They all admired the region’s greatest conquerors: Aleksandr Makedonskii (the Great), Temujin (Genghis Khan) and Timur the Lame (Tamerlaine).
How these historical figures would have been authentically depicted in film, I don’t know except that an ethnic Central Asian actor would have done better with the latter two than the quintessentially American icon, John Wayne. Yeah, there’s probably no one in the filmmaking capitals of Tashkent or Bishkek with equal star quality.
Casting Genghis Khan as a romantic hero is a bit of a stretch anyway, IMO.
I remember reading a review of some Brando movie where he played a German. The critic raved about how realistic Brando's accent was. I thought, you moron, why would an actor playing a German be speaking English with a German accent to another character who is supposedly German as well. I can't watch those movies anymore without laughing. And there's a million of them.