CRAZY RICH ASIANS: Is the World Ready?

Crazy Rich Asians is a great movie. The truth is that as an Asian American I was anticipating it with eagerness and dread. I was worried I would have to praise it to avoid being shunned. I am glad to report it is better than the hype. And everybody regardless of background can enjoy it. I like many movies. I loved this one.

Based on the best-selling novel by Kevin Kwan, it has that perfect balance needed for a successful rom-com. The tone is light and frothy, the colors are bright, and the pacing is brisk. But there is just that touch of drama to gesture at reality: is the central couple doomed because of cultural differences? The tension is much more compelling than might be expected.

Tiger Mom versus Girlfriend?

The set up is simple. Rachel Chu (Constance Wu, no relation to me) has been dating Nick Young (Henry Golding). The relationship is on the verge of becoming serious. Chu is invited by Young to his native Singapore for a family wedding. But Chu has not yet met any member of the extended clan.

More importantly, Chu — a professor of economics at NYU, in a bit of product placement that is so Asian, because of the investment in higher education and the premium on prestige — is somehow unaware of who her gentleman caller really is, the scion of the ultra high net worth Youngs, whose real estate holdings rival royalty. This implausible ignorance is the foundation of the story, and because the whole affair has the innocence of a movie you could bring your parents to, it must be forgiven in order to proceed with the festivities.

There is the briefest prelude. The episode displays the deft handling of the director, because it is funny. Ethnic Chinese Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeoh), mother of Nick, unruly children in tow, encounters racism in London, circa mid-90s. The problem is resolved by her buying the posh hotel. The unctuous staff immediately realize to their chagrin that they must toady up to someone they regarded as a social inferior.

The rest of the movie consists of Chu traveling abroad to the wonders of an ascendant Asia, discovering the identity of her paramour, and dealing with his relations who are none too keen to have a foreigner invade their ancestral home(s). Except for the color of skin and a bit of subtitled dialogue, this plays out like any other entry in the genre. But that detail makes it extraordinary.

Asian Asians and Asian Americans Aren’t the Same?

The most radical aspect of the movie is not what might be guessed. Yes, it is the first big-budget Hollywood feature with an all Asian/Asian-American cast in more than a generation, and probably only the second ever after Joy Luck Club (1993). (For those who would quibble, Bertolucci’s 1987 costume drama The Last Emperor depended on Peter O’Toole‘s Reginald Johnston as a literal interpreter.)

These Asians, depicted by an ensemble that is even more diverse than their characters, are buff and gorgeous. There are no buck teeth or coke-bottle-bottom glasses here. The comedic relief is homely as only movies present ugliness, which is to say better than average looking. Even behavior that might induce a cringe is scripted knowingly. It will provoke laughter from those who recognize their cousins as well as those who do not. The Goh family, headed by Ken Jeong, is  a hoot, and Joeng himself has become famous enough to be his own brand.

Yet the plot depends on a distinction that most people not Asian or Asian American might not have appreciated before sitting down for this entertainment: it is the difference between the Asian Asians and their overseas relations. The star, Constance Wu, was explaining well before this production that Asian Asians and Asian Americans are not the same. The lead of the hit TV show Fresh Off the Boat, she no doubt has been told, “well, you all look alike.” The movie would have been ruined if they had cast, as rumored to have been considered, a white American in her role — the point is that she faces prejudice that is not about nature but nurture, not genes but culture.

Her character faces a three-generation fight for her love. (Sorry — there should have been a spoiler alert for that, since only two of the generations are her obvious enemies.) This is Crazy Rich Asians meet Rational Middle-Class Asian American, as if Meet the Parents and Monster-in-Law, with a bit of the Metropolitans, were spliced together with Joy Luck and one of those Asian domestic market screwball comedies that are never released stateside.

In the first moments, there is a signal you might miss. Spies eavesdrop on Chu and Young, in order to report back in a global social media rumor circuit, and one text message among the dozen that flash on the screen calls Chu an “ABC,” meaning “American Born Chinese,” which could be merely descriptive but here becomes clearly critical. Chu is a Chinese American, emphasis on the second part of hyphenated identity, which is not favored by Young’s mother, who assumes it equates to gold-digging at best and individual pursuit of happiness at worst.

There is even, for those unable to figure out what the problem is, an explication of “banana” as a derogatory term used by Asian Asians for their Asian American cousins. It connotes “yellow in the outside, white on the inside.” The Young kinfolk here live, work, shop and party in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and on the mainland of China, but if they venture to England or America it can be only temporarily.

So to real Asians, specifically Chinese, Chu is not Chinese enough. She is incurably an alien despite her fluency in Mandarin, display of courtesies, wrapping dumplings, playing mahjong, not to mention academic accomplishment and lactose intolerance. It also doesn’t help that she has modest means. She brings her own homemade snacks for an international flight.

The characters, consistent with their global ambitions, speak English (including with the Queen’s accent), Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, and French. A pedant would cavil about the actors’ various accents, which make no sense genealogically. They take care of Jeong by having him break out of a fake inflection, saying he was a student in California.

Every aspect of this show has been thought through by people who “get it.” The soundtrack emphasizes the ease with which the Asians ”code switch” languages for the context. The songs are a blend of east and west that is our future, the discovery of a universal BPM that enabled Gangnam Style to captivate audiences everywhere. The preparation of Chinese food is exhibited more than once with glorious technique in the cinematography and cooking. Director Jon M. Chu, the son of an acclaimed restaurateur, has a G.I. Joe sequel among his credits, and the combination has given him the skills for these sequences. There is a fan supercut to be made, of the music and the kitchen scenes.

The novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, it is said, had a disagreement about wealth. Fitzgerald remarked along the lines of, “the very rich are different than you and me.” Hemingway replied, ”yes, they have more money.” In this fantasy, the viewer is invited to wonder whether the Asian rich are different than the American rich. They seem to believe so.

The affluence of the Youngs is meant to be incredible. That requires a baseline to establish properly. Chu’s buddy, the scene stealing Peik Lin Goh (Awkwafina), is the unabashed arriviste who admires from afar those above her in a hierarchy that is not hidden. The bottle blonde drives an Audi R8 with a custom hot pink paint job, a $150k car stateside. She is a pauper in comparison. She knows it too.

Crazy Rich Asians: The Asian American Black Panther?

Perhaps Crazy Rich Asians will be for Asians and Asian Americans what Black Panther was for Africans and African Americans, an extravaganza demonstrating both “cross over” appeal and the commercial possibilities of what might have been dismissed earlier as an amusement attractive only to minority communities. In these imagined universes, people of color are free and independent. Crazy Rich Asians is similar to Black Panther in its embrace of diaspora identity. These could constitute, with Wonder Woman, an historic moment in pop culture.

Like Joy Luck, the spiritual predecessor to this production, Crazy Rich Asians is dominated by women — and that is to be applauded. Crazy Rich Asians even pays tribute to Joy Luck: the face-off of the ladies is over a game of mahjong. Yeoh as the matriarch makes American Tiger Moms look like a knock-off. Awkwafina is the breakout star in her supporting role.

This movie is so good I wish I had been a tougher grader of everything else to highlight the accomplishment. Cinematic perfection must be by definition quite rare. This is just about it. There cannot be many other productions that could encourage tourists to consider Singapore as their next glamour destination.

Crazy Rich Asians is a rom-com that reveals the universal in the specific. It works in a bit of Asian American advocacy, both to Asian Asians and other Americans. The cast comes together. The result is subtle in its message, sweet in sentiment, and swift in execution. It already is a phenomenon. May it inspire much more.

How much say should our families have in our private lives?

Crazy Rich Asians saw release in the U.S. on August 15th. It will be released in the U.K. on November 2nd. For international release dates, check here.