I’ve been thinking to write you this letter for a while. I saw the movie [Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle](http://imdb.com/title/tt0305357/combined) on a movie channel recently. As a Mongolian, I’m deeply offended by your knowledge about my country.
In the beginning of the movie you show a scene that something is happening in Northern Mongolia and the people in the movie were speaking in Chinese. If you know a little bit about the country you would’ve known that Mongolia has its own, unique language, Mongolian. If you wanted to use Chinese people with their language you should’ve called that place Northern China.
I’m pretty sure that you’re a young and talented writer, but if you don’t know much about other cultures then don’t use them. I’m glad I didn’t pay to see your movie.
— Toshka
The sequence you’re talking about was written in English, with Russian subtitles, because the bad guys were supposed to be Russo-Mongolian. However, when it came time to shoot the sequence, they ended up casting Chinese actors. From a production standpoint, this makes sense: the martial arts team for the movie was largely Chinese, and these are the people who would end up doing the fight sequence anyway.
This is an example of why it’s frustrating being a screenwriter. You get blamed for a lot of things that are completely out of your control: plot holes that arise from editing, crappy dialogue improvised on the set, and supposedly Mongolian actors speaking Chinese.
I’m sorry, Toshka, that the five or six lines spoken in Chinese during the sequence offended you, but I think you’re expecting way too much cultural accuracy from a movie which ignores gravity, plausibility and narrative logic with alarming consistency.
Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle isn’t my favorite movie either, but I can easily think of five better reasons to be frustrated by it:
1. Too many villains. (Four, if you’re counting.)
2. The wrong kind of sexy. Flirtatious, meet slutty. Oh, you’ve met.
3. The whole ring McGuffin. Where’s Frodo Baggins when you need him?
4. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s — huh? Demi Moore can fly?!
5. Bernie Mac? Funny! I just wish I could understand what he’s saying.
I was complicit in at least three of these faults (#1, #3, and #4, begrudgingly), so I’ll gladly accept my share of the blame. But as for the Mongolian problem, nope. Can’t help you there.