Ian Anthony Dale was a castmember on DAY BREAK (namely, Detective Christopher Choi) before he was a castmember on MURDER IN THE FIRST (namely, Lieutenant Jim Koto); in between, he reprised his role as Detective Owen Kim on CRIMINAL MINDS.
Don “The Dragon” Wilson is of Japanese ancestry and has starred in countless movies. Okay, maybe not countless, since you can of course add BLOODFIST to BLOOFIST II and BLOODFIST III and BLOODFIST IV and BLOODFIST V and BLOODFIST VI and BLOODFIST VII and BLOODFIST VIII, and I forget where I was going with this.
Oh, right. So he was the lead in RED SUN RISING, as a Japanese detective tracking down his partner’s killer; and he was the lead in INFERNO, as an Interpol agent tracking down his partner’s killer; and he was the lead in WHATEVER IT TAKES, as an undercover cop [del]tracking down his partner’s killer[/del] investigating illegal steroids in Los Angeles; and, okay, he wasn’t top-billed in PAPERTRAIL as an FBI agent, but he was top-billed in THE PROPHET, as a federal agent looking into the deaths of former child prodigies, so that’s still pretty good.
Born and raised in Taiwan by her Chinese-Filipino father, Christina Chang has gotten plenty of work on television and in the movies – that’s her on 24, briefing Jack Bauer’s Counter-Terrorism Unit; and that’s her in LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, working as an agent in the FBI’s Cyber Crimes Division; and that’s her as the Assistant District Attorney on DRAGNET, and as the District Attorney on DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, and as the State Attorney on CSI:MIAMI, and so on, and so on – but I’m mentioning her because of her recurring role as Detective Yvonne Cho on NO ORDINARY FAMILY.
Ken Leung was Detective Steven Sing in SAW, but I figure he’s better-known from LOST as That Psychic Who Was A Security Officer Before Gettting A Badge From The LAPD.
Chuti Tiu played Detective Rachel Lin on thirty-six episodes of DESIRE before playing a nurse on DAYS OF OUR LIVES and a doctor on SOUTHLAND – and, as it happens, a detective on RIZZOLI & ISLES, just last month.
If you saw commercials for the crazy-profitable THE BOY NEXT DOOR earlier this year, you know Jennifer Lopez plays a high-school teacher who has a one-night stand over the summer with a younger man who – gasp! – turns out to be her student that fall, and who – double gasp! – is apparently stalking her!
From that, you can of course deduce that a detective shows up to deliver exposition and move the plot along – and since this post is showing up in this thread, you can deduce that the character is Detective Johnny Chou, as played by François Chau: an actor born in Cambodia of Vietnamese and Chinese descent, and a guy you maybe remember as FBI Agent Gim Takakura in that Russell Crowe flick back when.
Or as Shredder, from TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES? As Quick Kick, from GI JOE? As the Chief, from that remake of DRAGNET with Ed O’Neill as Joe Friday?
Chau’s been in a lot of stuff, is what I’m saying.
CS Lee spent all those seasons on DEXTER as Vince Masuka, the police department’s Lead Forensics Investgator; that presumably counts, but just to be sure I’ll add that he did so after playing a guy with the straight-up no-foolin’ rank of Detective in episode after episode after episode of LAW AND ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT.
Bruce Asato Locke played Shang Tsung on MORTAL KOMBAT: CONQUEST after he was Detective Jimmy Takata in a TV movie, but before he was Detective Hei on HUFF.
Ryo Ishibashi was Detective Nakagawa in THE GRUDGE with Sarah Michelle Gellar.
And who could forget Jack Soo as Nick Yemana on “Barney Miller”?
Jet Li was the lead in KISS OF THE DRAGON, as a law-enforcement officer who gets framed for murdering the criminal he was surveilling and has to prove his innocence. And he’s been top-billed in everything else from THE ONE (where he plays a cop) to CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE (where he plays an intelligence agent) to WAR.
In WAR, he’s the assassin hunted by second-billed Jason Statham, an FBI agent who wants revenge for his dead partner: a fellow FBI agent played by Terry Chen.
And then it turns out that, no, this is one-half of the plot from FACE/OFF; the FBI agent played by Chen doesn’t need to be avenged; he’s been getting played by Li, after faking his death and getting surgically altered for to go waaaay undercover and kick off Japanese-Yakuza-Versus-Chinese-Triad bloodshed while investigating who killed his family – while missing him – back when.
I mentioned Chen in passing there to set up the big spoiler, but that’s giving him short shrift; since playing Ben Fong-Torres in ALMOST FAMOUS, he’s fielded all sorts of roles: not just Agent Lee in BALLISTIC: ECKS VS SEVER and Deputy Bao on THE RETURNED, but also Detective Cage on SMALLVILLE and Inspector Jeong on NIKITA.
(You maybe remember him from HOUSE OF CARDS, as Xander Feng?)
Wow, I think we’ve discovered (or created) The Other Waldo Pepper’s hobby. 
Apparently… you! 
Well, “hobby” is a bit strong; bumping the thread each day takes almost no time, sure as Pick An Actor And Look At An IMDB listing takes less: the work of seconds, not minutes.
Take, say, Liza Lapira, an actress of Chinese and Filipino ancestry you maybe know from DOLLHOUSE or SUPER FUN NIGHT or DON’T TRUST THE B---- IN APARTMENT 23, or as FBI Agent Sophie Trinh in FAST & FURIOUS: what was she doing before that? Well, she was Special Agent Michelle Lee on NCIS in '06 and '07, and even in '08, when she was also Detective Yuki Amado on all those DEXTER episodes; what’s she been doing since? This year, she was a detective on a dozen episodes of BATTLE CREEK.
Bang, done. (And that’s me skipping all her episodes as a Forensics Tech on L&O SVU.)
There was a stretch there when it seemed to me that Soon Tech Oh was the go-to guy if you wanted to cast a 30-40ish asian role. I presume he was cast as a cop or detective once in a while.
IMDB says that, when he was in his 40s, he was Detective Phil Nozaki: trying to track down Charles-Bronson-As-Vigilante-Paul-Kersey in one of the DEATH WISH flicks.
Seems legit.
He wasn’t in every episode of “MAS*H”, it just seemed like it.
Remember how Rosalind Chao parlayed the part of Soon-Lee Klinger on MASH into playing Soon-Lee Klinger on AFTERMASH – before playing Keiko O’Brien on, y’know, STAR TREK: TNG and STAR TREK: DS9? Well, after all of that she landed the recurring role of Lieutenant Maggie Chen on 10-8: OFFICERS ON DUTY.
Someone else who got work on MAS*H back when: the aforementioned Pat Morita. Not yet aforementioned: his top-billed role as Investigator Fujitsuka Natsuo in COLLISION COURSE, which used to play on HBO like all the time in the early '90s.
This thread is really popular. I couldnt think of anything to say here if I lived to be 100