Crazy Rich Asians

It is becoming a phenomenon. The African-American had Black Panther. The Asian community had ..... Crazy Rich Asians. Well, sounded fair?

I did not have much expectation on the movie when it first came out. I was not familiar with the source material although I knew that the director, Jon M Chu - who was behind Justin Beiber: Never Say Never and the Step-Up series - hardly something I am a fan of. But I came out of the theatre admiring his work, and with a solid source material and a slightly over the top screenplay, the movie was a winner.

I will not write down any spoilers here, but there were 3 main scenes in this movie which I personally found fascinating.

The first was the “social media” scene when the main protagonists, Nick and Rachel having a date in a cafe in New York with the news fast traveling round the globe within second, culminating in a phone call from Nick’s Mum calling him from Singapore even before the date was done. A great use of props and diagram to demonstrate the fast pace of social media in this day and age.

Second was the spectacular wedding in the church. The less I mention about this, the better. But suffice to say, the song “Can’t Help Falling in Love” would be sang in plenty of weddings in the coming years. It was astounding!

Last but not least was the scene at the mahjong house - incidentally filmed in Penang. Sharp dialogue with some subtle nuance. Plenty at stake and the director just pulled it off! Enough said!

It was a great journey and I left the theatre hoping for a sequel - which the last I heard would be on the cards. There were a number of scenes which seemed cliche’d and as a Malaysian we might take offence to some of the claims. But after discovering that a lot of the scenes were filmed in Malaysia, we just let that it slide. The acting was solid, and on the whole, I would highly recommend. The trailer below was from YouTube.