Crazy Rich Asians is a romance comedy drama based on the international bestseller and features an all-Asian cast of up-and-coming to established stars. The story follows, Rachel Chu, a young Economics professor, raised by a single parent in the United States. Picking up months into her romance with the young heartthrob and eligible bachelor, Nick Young, she discovers her boyfriend comes from an extremely wealthy property tycoon family from China. Attending an upcoming wedding back home in Singapore as his +1, she enters his world away from New York, encountering a backlash from his mother and a number of envious single women.

Crazy Rich Asians is refreshing for its cultural shift, gender slant and cast makeover, taking a typically Hollywood romantic comedy premise and supplanting it in an Asian setting with a strong feminine edge. Using English as the primary language, adhering to many of the genre’s conventions and appealing to Western values surrounding capitalism and even religion, it’s a rather surreal yet typically Hollywood experience. These kind of wealth-driven comedies were big in the ’80s, taking the allure of prosperity and the American dream and almost usurping it with this modern rehash. These flashy and fun movies are as enjoyable as bubblegum, giving viewers a voyeuristic encounter with extreme wealth, and chewing on the idea of love or money.

Super wealth without conscience is now more widely regarded as tacky, given the sweeping changes across the environmental, social and technological landscape. Crazy Rich Asians somehow manages to bypass this without much effort and simply overriding it with a knowing wink and razzle-dazzle flair thanks to Step Up: 3D and Now You See Me 2’s Jon M. Chu. Operating like a fairy tale, with a modern prince and a peasant girl from the wrong side of town, the film is eye-catching in terms of the decor, pageantry, vehicles and cityscapes with an Asian twist.

“Some have called me The Fresh Prince of Asia. They are no more.”

While it becomes apparent that a number of cast members don’t speak English as a first language, the filmmakers have managed to concoct a fluent and sparkling romance comedy drama with pizzazz. The handsome cast, solid collective of performances from a wide-ranging ensemble, understanding of the genre and its ability to peel away some of the emotional layers, make it quite inspiring. In a day and age where romantic comedies have lost their lustre, Crazy Rich Asians injects some energy, creating an enchanting, empowering and entertaining film. While it operates with a distinctly Hollywood feel, glorifying superficiality and materialism, there’s a strong sense of family and duty that comes through, bowing to Asian culture and tradition.

The trailer makes the film out to be a live-wire comedy, but there are only a handful of genuine laughs. Several larger-than-life characters played by Awkwafina, Nico Santos and Ken Jeong lead the hilarity, allowing their terrific screen presence to generate some much-needed comic relief and zing. Otherwise, the film has a fairly laboured dramatic sensibility as the focus moves from the central romance to the strained relationship between Rachel, the girlfriend, and her prospective mother-in-law, Eleanor, with a typically bitter “she’s not good enough for my son” rivalry.

While celebrated as a boy-meets-girl romance, this is Rachel’s story, who is somewhat reminiscent of Anna Kendrick. While Henry Golding is dapper, he is somewhat limited in his performance, in a similar capacity to Freddie Prince Jr. as a looks-and-sounds-the-part prince charming. His possessive and domineering mother, played perfectly by Michelle Yeoh, is where the real emotional core of this film lies. While there is some interplay between several of the couples, almost trying to expand the film into a broader ensemble piece, it really is powered by Rachel and her fish-out-of-water journey.

The cinematography is smooth, with some impressive single shots gliding across cocktail events, swathing the audience in a film bedecked with jewellery and the finer things in life. While at times ostentatious, its down-to-earth lead keeps things real and relatable as our insider. There are a few subplot distractions, which make Crazy Rich Asians a meandering film, some of which could have been cut, but for the most part it’s enjoyable.

It would have been good to get a bit more foregrounding to the central relationship, but this film is aiming for frivolous fun with a touch of emotional engagement. To this end it it succeeds, offering an entertaining, red carpet foray with enough spunk and trinkets to keep things moving at a steady pace.

Crazy Rich Asians’ adoption of Hollywood standards and American dream ambitions would probably make a compelling academic essay. It would be fascinating to find out what Asian theatre goers think of the film in terms of its cultural mix and use of language. All in all, it’s an upbeat and fairly satisfying romance comedy drama that will appeal to most fans of romantic comedies.

The bottom line: Flashy

Release date:  Now Showing
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Stephen ‘Spling’ Aspeling is 2Oceansvibe’s Resident Film Critic, a “thought leader” (AFDA) and “our generation’s Barry Ronge” (Brothers Streep), who continues to review, write, present, promote and adjudicate film for a host of websites, radio stations, magazines, newspapers, TV shows, festivals and events.