A New Yorker is plunged into the world of Singaporean high society while
attending a wedding with her aristocratic boyfriend.
Review by
Ren Zelen
Directed by: Jon M. Chu
Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Gemma
Chan, Awkwafina, Lisa Lu, Ken Jeong
Having spent 12 years of my life in Hong Kong and Singapore, and having
heard the buzz around Crazy Rich Asians, I was ready to see the film. If the reaction of the audience at the
preview is anything to go by, the film is a crowd pleaser. The predominantly
Asian audience greeted the cast members present for an introduction and
Q&A with hoots of joy and were clearly predisposed to enjoying a story
about Asian cultural concerns, their enthusiasm whetted by the overwhelming
success the film has enjoyed in the US.
I myself generally don't frequent rom-coms, and it was reassuring to see
that nothing much appears to have changed regarding that genre. The
‘Cinderella’ story of a handsome ‘Prince Charming’ who falls madly in love
with an ‘everywoman’ and sweeps her off her feet to marry her into his
wealthy, aristocratic family is…ahem… "a tale as old as time," and in view
of recent events, not entirely improbable (1.9 billion people tuned in to
watch the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle).
The difference here is that the tale takes place entirely among the Chinese
Asian community, none of whom actually live in what used to be called
‘Mainland China’ (not sure if Shanghai, being the most cosmopolitan Chinese
city, has ever quite counted in that description either).
However, it’s really pretty clear that
Crazy Rich Asians isn’t really meant to be a film about
fantasy romance or Chinese culture as such, but about 'bananas' ("yellow on
the outside, white on the inside" - their nick-name for the Chinese born and
brought up in the West) clashing with the old values of 'Mother China' that
the more traditional Chinese families residing in Asia continue to hold
dear.
Rather than a film which hopes to explode cultural preconceptions and
stereotypes, Crazy Rich Asians exploits and satirises them. It
starts off having fun with the notion of the ‘old-school British’ being
snobby and racist, and then switches to present day New York, where our
heroine Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is an (impossibly young) Professor
of Economics…of course she is…(not much of an ‘everywoman’ after all).
In contemporary Chinese culture, to be worthy of a favoured ‘prince’, she
must have more than beauty and an auspiciously shaped nose - she has to be
an academic high-achiever. We find that all the influential wives in
Crazy Rich Asians have had an exceptional academic education -
and Rachel has too, in spades (there’s a pun there if you’ve seen the
film).
However, her expertise is impressive in a particularly Chinese way - she
uses her knowledge of economics and maths to elucidate on…game strategy!
It’s the first indication that the film will be dealing with three great
tenets of Chinese society - family, money and gambling!
Rachel’s long-time boyfriend is a historian named Nick Young (Henry Golding
- half British and half Malaysian). Rachel accompanies Nick to Singapore for
his best friend Colin’s (Chris Pang) wedding, and it’s there that
Rachel first finds out that Nick is actually the eldest son of the oldest,
wealthiest and haughtiest family in Singapore, heir to a real-estate
dynasty. He might as well be an actual ‘prince’.
Nick has kept his heritage a secret and has done nothing to prepare Rachel
for life in the gaudy, gilded arena of Singaporean-Chinese high-society. She
may be a seasoned New Yorker, but here she is a babe in the woods - and the
socialite wolves can sniff out a hapless victim. Luckily, Rachel has an old
college buddy, the nouveau-riche Singaporean, Peik Lin Goh
(Awkwafina), to advise her.
Despite her academic achievements, Rachel has been raised by an immigrant
single-mother (Kheng Hua Tan) in New York, so these privileged,
spoiled and ultra-rich socialites see her as a mere gold-digger who has
somehow bagged their most eligible bachelor from under their noses. However,
Rachel’s biggest hurdle is Nick’s glamorous, scrupulously well-mannered but
coldly formidable mother, Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeoh).
Crazy Rich Asians is amusingly conscious of its fantasy
elements. It offers a world filled with obscene spending sprees, outrageous
ostentation, designer dresses, opulent banquets and baubles, where if you
have to ask the price of anything, you shouldn’t even be there. It makes
gentle fun of the over-the-top displays of wealth, but not too much - after
all, it's also aspirational.
This film is also a great travel advertisement for the city-state of
Singapore. I admit to being biased, having lived there and having much
affection for the place and the Singaporean people. However, it’s not quite
the city that the film shows us - it’s certainly gorgeous, friendly and
futuristic, but it’s also conservative, hardworking, straight-laced and
regulatory, and there is barely a passing reference to any of the males in
the film having done their compulsory national service! It is not ‘Vegas’ -
it is a marvellous mix of Asian cultures and foods, history and
science-fiction, and it is distinctly ‘family friendly’.
Singaporean travelogue aside, the most important thing about
Crazy Rich Asians is its English-speaking Asian cast. I’ve
seen many films about Asians in their native languages, but few about the
Asian diaspora. It’s been 25 years since a Hollywood studio has funded a
film set in the present-day which features an entirely Asian,
Asian-American, Asian-British cast - the last example being
The Joy Luck Club (1993). Last year, only four out of the
hundred top-grossing films featured an Asian protagonist.
Hollywood is undoubtedly watching the success of the film in order to gauge
whether it should greenlight more Asian-centric projects. The reception for
Crazy Rich Asians in the US might indicate there is a huge
audience out there, and the universal appeal of this gentle, romantic,
silly, sometimes cynical, rags-to-riches fantasy, makes it likely to do well
in the international market too.
Crazy Rich Asians is on Netflix
UK/ROI now.