What makes Crazy Rich Asians irresistibly great

THERE are few non-comic book movies audiences are genuinely this excited about. And for a bloody good reason too.

LIKE Wonder Woman and Black Panther before it, the expectations on Crazy Rich Asians are enormous and intimidating.

With that kind of pressure placed upon one popcorn movie — future Hollywood projects with all-Asian casts riding on its success or failure — Crazy Rich Asians had to be more than just a fun rom-com, which it undoubtedly is.

It’s a charming, whirlwind story with madcap characters, sumptuous eye candy (of the human and non-human variety) and a whole of lot of heart.

Audiences of all colours and stripes won’t be able to resist its classic Cinderella-esque, fish-out-of-water story about Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a smart Asian-American economics professor meeting boyfriend Nick Young’s (newcomer Henry Golding) family for the first time.

Meeting the in-laws is a universally anxious experience but few of us have the added complication of finding out our partners come from massive fortunes that stretch back generations, with the prejudices to match.

A different kind of Cinderella story. Picture: Sanja Bucko/Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP

When Rachel arrives in Singapore, she’s treated to a kaleidoscopic experience of sights, sounds and incredible food as she’s thrust into a world where dropping $1.2 million on a pair of vintage pearl earrings is just another Tuesday.

If you’re a crazy rich Asian, you helicopter your way to your buck’s night on an outrageous party barge in international waters and your $100 million compound is guarded by highly trained Gurkhas.

Rachel is dropped into the lion’s den with moneyed socialites out to “get” her, but her biggest foe comes in the form of Nick’s mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), who can’t brook the idea of her son becoming serious with an Asian-American woman.

Because as much as Crazy Rich Asians is about Jimmy Choos, insanely expensive cars and private island resorts, it’s much more about love and family, and what you owe to the people in your life and what you owe to yourself.

Yeoh is spectacular as the imperious Eleanor, adapting and translating what was a one-dimensional character in the best-selling book Crazy Rich Asians to someone with layers and understandable motivations — a character audiences can empathise with despite the horrible things she says and does.

In the hands of Yeoh, Eleanor is so much more than a villainous dragon mum. There is a scene towards the end of the film between Yeoh and Wu’s Rachel over a mahjong table that’s written specifically for the film, and even though Yeoh says very little, she makes clear everything Eleanor is feeling in those moments.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Mum.

And it really is the women who are incandescent in Crazy Rich Asians, from Yeoh to Wu who can switch from defiant to heartbroken to joyful with ease. This is Rachel’s story, much more so than it was in Kevin Kwan’s book, and Wu is a perfect leading actor.

Then there is supporting player, British actor Gemma Chan, who plays Nick’s cousin Astrid, who, despite being underserved in the story still manages to own her role. And there’s Korean-American rapper and comedian Awkwafina as Rachel’s friend Peik Lin, whose family is new money and unapologetically gauche.

Crazy Rich Asians has an easy comedic spirit, especially when Rachel is hanging out with Peik Lin’s clan (the dad is played by funnyman Ken Jeong) or with Nick’s “rainbow sheep” cousin Oliver (Nico Santos from Superstore). You can tell the actors had fun riffing and improvising a lot of that material on set and the naturalism in those scenes shine — so thank god both of those characters had been expanded from page to screen, the creative team knew what a goldmine they had on their hands.

If anything, where Crazy Rich Asians doesn’t quite deliver may be the central romance between Nick and Rachel — the chemistry between Golding and Wu is good but it’s not off-the-charts amazing. It’s definitely not as winning as the chemistry between Wu and Yeoh, or Wu and Awkwafina.

As a character, Nick is underdeveloped and his “nice guy” persona and actions don’t stretch beyond the usual rom-com tropes. And he is guilty of some of the cheesiest, cringiest lines — the kind of dialogue that it takes you out of what was supposed to be romantic moments.

Too much of a nice guy.

As the first studio movie about the Asian diaspora experience since The Joy Luck Club in 1993, Crazy Rich Asians had to, in Hollywood blockbuster terms, justify its own existence. It’s not enough for it to be critically well-received and be relatable to wider, non-Asian audiences, it also has to make money.

And it has. Directed by American Jon M. Chu, the movie opened at number one at the US box office and became the first rom-com to rake in more than $US20 million on its US opening weekend in three years. A sequel has already been confirmed.

It’s a boisterous ride that you’ll want to jump on time and again, still chortling with each rewatch — your eyes greedily consuming the delights of Singapore, your ears dancing to the perfectly picked tunes from the Chinese folk-pop of Teresa Teng to a Mandarin cover of Coldplay’s “Yellow”, while your heart bursts with glee.

That’s what makes it good.

But it does more than that. People are excited for this movie, people are crying out for this movie.

Crazy Rich Asians reflects back to Asian diaspora audiences themselves, their experiences and their challenges — of not quite belonging to the dominant caucasian culture in which they grew up but also not being part of the culture in the Asian homes their parents or grandparents left.

It empowers and legitimises those audiences — to embrace their difference and to be visible.

That’s what makes it great.

Rating: ★★★½

Crazy Rich Asians is in cinemas from Thursday, August 30.

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