Long Duk Dong
fictional character
Long Duk Dong is a fictional character who appears in Sixteen Candles, a 1984 American coming-of-age comedy film written and directed by John Hughes. Played by Japanese American actor Gedde Watanabe, the character is a Chinese foreign exchange student and a supporting character in the film set at a US suburban high school. The character has been called an offensive stereotype of Asian people.
Fictional appearance
In Sixteen Candles (1984), Long Duk Dong (played by Gedde Watanabe) is a Chinese foreign exchange student who stays with the grandparents of the film's protagonist Samantha (played by Molly Ringwald). He appears accompanied by a gong sound. He practices his conversational English with others, has his hair parted down the middle as an "uncool" style, is mystified by American food, and calls himself "The Donger". Dong also finds a love interest in Marlene, an athletic and chesty young woman who is physically larger than him.
Susannah Gora, writing about Sixteen Candles, said, "The role of 'The Donger' is pure comedy; a gong sounds every time Dong enters a scene. With his thick accent and bumbled attempts at American catchphrases ('Whass happenin', haaht stuff?'), everything Long Duk Dong says and does is understandably offensive—but is also, admittedly, hilarious."
Casting and performance
Actor Gedde Watanabe, a Japanese American from Ogden, Utah, was cast as Long Duk Dong in what was "his big Hollywood break". Before his audition, Watanabe had been in New York City performing for the musical Pacific Overtures at The Public Theater.
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This entry incorporates text from “Long Duk Dong” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.