Crazy Rich Asians

Dir: Jon M. Chu

2018

*

I can’t say I had ever heard of Kevin Kwan’s novel before and after seeing how Jon M. Chu had fumbled his way through two of my favorite childhood cartoons (G.I. Joe and Jem and the Holograms) I can’t say I was that interested in watching another of his adaptations. Now You See Me 2 is also one of the worst films I’ve seen in recent times. So Crazy Rich Asians wasn’t on my radar, in fact I thought it was another wretched MTV reality TV show when I first heard the title, but so many people gave it positive reviews. People I trust. It was in the cinema for ages, I didn’t get round to seeing it until it came out on DVD but after all the hype I was rather looking forward to it. Now I know I’m a grumpy old man but seriously, what on earth did people see in this? It is dreadful. From what I can tell, the film has been celebrated for everything that it isn’t but pretends to be, strip it down to its basic structure and it tells a very familiar and tired story – and can’t even get that right. Expensive doesn’t automatically mean quality. Take away the glamorous locations, fancy clothes and expensive jewelry and what you are left with is a cast of not very good actors and a story so thin that you can see through it, the same way you can see grease-proof paper when it is covered in grease. It has been heralded as the first major Asian film since The Joy Luck Club and now the biggest. Netflix wanted to produce the film and offered a much bigger budget, but Kevin Kwan deliberately turned down the offer in favour of a modest $30-million budget from Warner Bros. He did this to send a message that Asian-American studio movies are commercially viable and in the end he was right. However, is this really a success for South East Asians in cinema? From where I was sitting the film insulted everyone who was paying attention. It is fair to say the film lost me in the first scene where Michelle Yeoh’s character turns up late one night in the early 90s at the London Savoy (named something else in the film) with her two young children, only to have the receptionist and hotel manager refuse to believe that she had a room booking. We are clearly made to believe that these stereotypical stuffy Englishmen refuse their entry based on their ethnicity, in a ‘ha ha ha, aren’t they racist’ sort of way. The Savoy is one of the most international hotels in the world, it is world famous and people from all over the globe stay there. The idea that the staff there would turn someone away for being Asian is ridiculous and quite insulting. I actually know someone who works there, they are lovely and haven’t seen the film, so I was insulted on their behalf. The Savoy was built specifically to entice foreign guests, Asians wouldn’t have been turned away in the 1890s, let alone the 1990s. The reaction for the Asian characters was to make a phone call and then buy the hotel, sacking the two employees. So within the first ten minutes we see a false representation of racism followed by the smugness of the mega-rich. I personally have better things to do of an evening, like wash the dishes to take the dog for a walk (and it should be known that I have a working dishwasher and no dog). The story then fast-forwards to present day where one of the children in the first film, the little boy Nick, is now a successful man living and working in New York. He is in a relationship with a young lady and it seems that things are being serious between them. He asks her to accompany him to the wedding of his best friend who is getting married in Singapore and it soon becomes apparent that A. His family are rich and he hasn’t told her and B. His family are probably not going to like her because she hasn’t got as much money as them because rich people are like that. Apart from Nick that is. Nick is mega rich but super smug about it. He keeps his wealth a secret, like a weapon. He’s very polite and well spoken and seems nice enough but it is clearly his secret wealth that we the viewer are supposed to be attracted to. The fact that he’s not nasty and doesn’t boast of his wealth is supposedly enough for us to like him. I didn’t hate him, but he is about as dull as you can get. I would say his girlfriend Rachael deserved better – pretty much anyone else would – but actually she deserves him as much as he deserves her, they’re a dull match made in dullsville and therefore perfect for each other. When in Singapore they meet Nick’s family and it takes a long time for Rachael to realise he is wealthy and she is unliked for being poor. She is also disliked for being American, even though 98% of them are American or British. It should be made clear that this film is Crazy Rich East Asians, ignoring the fact that Singapore is populated by many people from Malay, Indian and of Eurasian decent. This has got to be the most western-friendly Asian film ever made. It has angered quite a lot of people, generally those with half a brain cell who actually paid attention to what was going on. This isn’t about Asians at all really, it is about rich people and those who think wealth makes people interesting. Ken Jeong’s character isn’t how he is in the original novel and even though Jeong gets top billing, he’s only in the film for 3 minutes. This film is or an American audience, not an Asian one. Like I’ve said before in other reviews, the audience really isn’t that bothered about where the actors are from or what colour they are, they go to the cinema to watch films that will captivate them, make them laugh and overall entertain them. It is studios and out of touch producers who think audiences will struggle with ethnic actors, homosexuality and, god forbid, an all female cast. I think their test audiences are still those living in bible belt America, forgetting that far more people living in other parts of the planet also watch movies and many of them are not neo-Nazis. The film is basically all about Rachael trying to fit in with Nick’s wealthy family and to be excepted by them. Michelle Yeoh, who plays Nick’s mother, decides Rachael isn’t good enough and tells Nick he’ll be cut off if he marries her. At no point does Nick agree to this, making him all the more pathetic then I first thought. Rachael beats him to it and decides to leave, saying that family is not important and that she loves Nick for who he is and not his vast wealth. Nick’s mother, who still hates Rachael, finally decides to agree to it – not the marriage though, just not cutting off Nick’s pocket money. She clearly still hates Rachael but at this point Rachael doesn’t care and proceeds to show everyone her very expensive ring. The moral of the story is ripped up, set on fire, fed to the dog and farted out into the wind. Five hours of my life I will never get back. It wasn’t actually five hours long but it certainly felt like it. I once saw a blind person in an art gallery. This isn’t a silly made up story, I genuinely did. I was fascinated as to why they were there. Luckily for me someone asked them so I didn’t have to. The blind lady commented that she liked to listen to the descriptive audio headphones the gallery gave out. She would never see the paintings themselves but she enjoyed the descriptions. I couldn’t argue with that but then I saw her again later on in the gallery café. She was telling someone else about a painting and how beautiful it was and the person I was with thought it was the most wonderful thing she’d ever heard. Never being one to let a beautiful moment get in the way of a good rant about art, I decided to go back in the gallery and listen to the audio description. It said very little about the painting other than when and where it was painted. It spoke more about the artist and what their emotional state was like at the time. I thought the painting was rather crude but that is my opinion. The blind lady could never have known what the painting was like (it was fairly abstract) and yet she was telling everyone how wonderful it was. This was around fifteen years ago and I still don’t understand what it means but what I’m basically trying to say is Crazy Rich Asians is bullshit and everyone I’ve heard talking about it seems to have spent too much time in the art gallery’s café talking about it and less time actually looking at it and calling it out for the poorly framed photocopy that it is.