I mentioned a while ago how Lucy Liu was top-billed as an investigative journalist tracking down criminals in RISE, but didn’t mention how Natsuko Ohama played her mom, because why would I? But before that, Ohama did dozens of FOREVER KNIGHT episodes as the police captain forever bossing around Detective Nicholas Knight.
Michael Sun Lee has tons of cop credits in general, and as a Detective in particular, which I mentioned back in August; I didn’t, and couldn’t, mention then that he’s about to earn yet another IMDB credit as a Detective tonight, on TRUE NIGHTMARES.
Kelvin Han Yee was Detective Scott Chen on Hawaii before he was the Chief of Police on Hawaii Five-O – stopping to play a Detective on Criminal Minds in between.
In ONE MISSED CALL, the movie where folks get mysterious voicemails with the date and time of their upcoming demise, Margaret Cho played Detective Mickey Lee.
(And it scored a 0% on Rotten Tomatoes, which you’ve really got to work at.)
Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa was top-billed as Chang Apana in The Legend of Chang Apana.
Tom Yi has been everywhere – he was Señor Chang’s brother (i.e., Rabbi Chang) on COMMUNITY; and was Doctor Kenneth Lo on RAY DONOVAN; and was Bruce Morimoto, a chemist accused of an inside-job pharmaceutical-company heist on LIE TO ME; and was the Medical Examiner in that made-for-TV movie about Drew Peterson – and, as usual, I’m reluctant to count ‘Medical Examiner’; and, as usual, I don’t especially need to bother, since he got a recurring role as a Detective on THE SHIELD before he got a recurring role as, well, a Detective on GENERAL HOSPITAL.
Annie Chang’s been cast for 11 episodes on Shades of Blue as FBI Agent Molly Chen.
In the Donald Strachey mysteries, Nelson Wong plays Kenny Kwon, the office manager at Strachey Investigations – which wouldn’t count, except Kwon is working toward a private-detective license, and so gets tasked with stuff like tailing the target du jour in the third one before going the full PI-In-Training route in the fourth one.
Current “it” show THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE has the sizable role of Inspector Kido being ably fielded by Filipino-American actor Joel de la Fuente.
I mentioned Tzi Ma back in July, since he’d run the gamut from Detective Eddie Pak to Detective Harold Ng before solving crimes as Cheng Zhi on 24 – but nobody’s yet mentioned his wife, Christina Ma, who played Detective Leslie Yee on NIGHTMAN.
At that, Kipp Shiotani – who, back in 2004 and 2005 and 2006 was Dr. Kevin Namura on THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL – presumably doesn’t count for playing Agent Ito on JAG. But his wife, Jennifer Aquino – who was also on JAG, as Jun Higashimori – was in ONLY THE BRAVE alongside Shiotani (with her as Grace Nakajo, and him as Corporal Johnny Nomura) after she was Detective Laura Hannigan on HAWAII.
Roy Vongtama was Detective Lee in DEATH CLIQUE just last year.
Sorry to nix this, since you’ve put in an awful lot to this thread, but Tuiasosopo is a Samoan name.
Does the T-1000 in Terminator: Genisys count as a detective or as Asian? He’s a machine from the future that kills people and he’s only imitating a cop but he’s played by Lee Byung-hun.
And to think: I only put Tuiasosopo in that post because I wanted to make sure I was bumping the thread with something relevant, instead of putting all my eggs in one basket with Chong! It gives a bloke pause…
(As it happens, I was about to mention how Amara Karan’s been cast in LUCKY MAN as Detective Sergeant Suri Chohan – and now you have me triple-checking every detail of her Sri Lankan ancestry! I should’ve been so careful to begin with!)
Which brings me to this:
[QUOTE=DWMarch]
Does the T-1000 in Terminator: Genisys count as a detective or as Asian? He’s a machine from the future that kills people and he’s only imitating a cop but he’s played by Lee Byung-hun.
[/QUOTE]
Huh. From a quick look at IMDB, he’s the new Detective Lee in RUSH HOUR 4 – only that’s a joke, it was a spoof, it never really happened, this is me being careful.
Only it turns out they really are going back to the RUSH HOUR well, with Jon Foo as the new Detective Lee (and Justin Hires as the new Detective Carter, at that)! Which just leaves me gobsmacked; if they’re at the point now where they’re recycling stuff that came up on the first page, I’m honestly having a hard time working up the enthusiasm to keep bothering: there’s effectively an unlimited number of detectives of Asian ancestry played by actors of Asian ancestry – even allowing for the fact that I namechecked a guy of Pacific Islander extraction in the process – but what’s the point of continuing the list if the classic example that came up then is now on the brink of spawning a second franchise out of the first franchise? 
:dubious: