Memoirs of a Chinese Geisha

The director of the new US film Memoirs of a Geisha is taking a lot of heat for casting Chinese actresses Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li and Michelle Yeoh as Japanese women. (I guess Maggie Cheung was busy?) His defense: they were cast "because of their acting ability and star power, not their race." So, if you were casting this movie based on acting ability and star power, and race wasn't a consideration, why didn't you consider Reese Witherspoon and Hilary Swank for the lead roles? Because you figured that most people would notice that was weird, whereas your average North American moviegoer wouldn't notice the difference between Chinese and Japanese. It's all Asian. Close enough.

I'm not saying that I have a problem with casting against race per se. Lou Diamond Phillips has made a whole career out of being the all-purpose brown guy. But just admit that you cast them because they were close enough to be believable rather than claiming that race wasn't a factor.