Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars
Bottom Line: A fun movie that delves deep into Asian culture. And tells the story from a mostly female point of view! Boy, do I want to visit Singapore now!
Goodness, this was a fun movie! “Crazy Rich Asians” somehow perfectly walks the line of silly, serious, outlandish, and down to earth. And while I’m sure that there is so much more for Asians that uncultured white boys like myself couldn’t even fathom the context of, it is also completely accessible to us uncultured white boys as well.
“Crazy Rich Asians” tells the timeless tale of girl meets boy. Boy asks girl to go to a wedding with him. Girl finds out boy is rich. Girl finds out boy is obscenely rich. Girl has to meet boy’s obscenely rich and…colorful family. The girl in question is Rachel Chu (Constance Wu who you may recognize from “Fresh Off the Boat”), an economics professor born and raised in the United States, and the boy is Nick Young (Henry Golding), of the Singaporean Youngs, a real estate tycoon family whom everyone in Singapore knows. They are joined by an absolutely wonderful supporting cast including Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Awkwafina, Ken Jeong, and Ronnie Chang, just to name a few.
What’s great about this movie is it’s mostly about women and told by women, but at the same time there are men in it and they are also real men and not just comedy side pieces, though they are definitely eye-pleasing pieces. From start to finish, it’s just strong women being strong, but also living real life and going through real life predicaments. Well, also while being ridiculously rich, except for Rachel Chu who is just strong and not rich.
You will be forgiven if you sometimes wonder if you are watching a movie or a tourism commercial for Singapore. “Crazy Rich Asians” showcases Singapore in all of its beauty and glory and decadence. Goodness, did I have some travelers envy watching parts of this movie. Singapore has definitely moved up in places I want to visit soon.
“Crazy Rich Asians” is based off of book one in a series of books by Kevin Kwan. It has been a wonderful success and deservedly so. We can only hope that success translates into the other two movies being made as well. It is heartening to see that epic stories featuring an almost exclusively non-white cast be successful. There are so many of these stories yet to be told and so many worth hearing.