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Crazy Rich Asians kills the stereotypes that we usually see of asian characters in other western films. Such as asian characters being tigers moms or martial arts master but in this movie Nick is a young attractive rich asian man. The women in this movie are strong, independent, hard headed asian women.

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★★★★★

At a time when Hollywood has started to realize that diversity sells, "Crazy Rich Asians" brings glitz and glamour to the rom-com genre and makes history in the process.

Dynamic performances by Constance Wu and Henry Golding and nuanced characters who defy tropes make the story compelling, while the appealing landscapes and costumes delight the eye. Signifying a cultural milestone for the Asian-American community, this blockbuster is the first major studio film to feature a majority-Asian cast since "The Joy Luck Club" over 25 years ago.

Based on Kevin Kwan's bestselling novel, "Crazy Rich Asians" tells the colorful story of Chinese-American economics professor Rachel Chu, played by Wu, who accompanies her longtime boyfriend Nick Young, played by newcomer Golding, to his best friend's wedding in Singapore.

Rachel is unknowingly thrust headfirst into a world of elitist family members and jealous socialites when she discovers that her boyfriend comes from one of the wealthiest families in Singapore. Throughout the film, Rachel navigates many challenges, the most difficult being the disapproval of Nick's mom, Eleanor Young, played by Michelle Yeoh.
On the surface, "Crazy Rich Asians" is a lavish escapist fantasy with a crazy plot and an even more eccentric ensemble of characters. The breathtaking scenery of Singapore and extravagant costumes contribute to the visual feast that the film offers.

"Crazy Rich Asians" also tells the story of an Asian-American woman coming to terms with her cultural identity and embracing her mixed heritage with great pride. Throughout the movie, the greatest criticism Rachel faces from Nick's family and friends - especially his mother - is that she will never be enough for Nick or his world due to her American roots and lower socio-economic status.

Eleanor particularly looks down on the fact that Rachel is the daughter of a single mother and that Rachel pursues her passion rather than focusing on familial responsibility. The personal journey Rachel undergoes provides the backbone of the narrative, and the moment she realizes her own self-worth, regardless of what others think, is an empowering and emotional scene.

The vulnerability, strength and humor that Wu brings to her character endear her to the audience and leave them rooting for her happy ending. Along with Wu, the star-studded ensemble features a combination of established Hollywood actors and actresses and notable newcomers; this mix can be attributed in large part to director Jon Chu's initial international open casting call in 2017, through which he aimed to boost Asian representation on the big screen.

Western films usually feature commonly recycled depictions of Asian characters: the tiger mom, the martial arts master, the awkward nerd and so forth. "Crazy Rich Asians" turns these tropes on their heads and shows Asians in a refreshing new light. For example, the film's portrayal of men like Nick as attractive and charming combats the stereotype of the undesirable Asian man. Rachel's college friend Peik Lin, played by Awkwafina, demonstrates this portrayal when she gawks at Nick and says, "He's like the Asian Bachelor!"

Perhaps even more significantly, Asian women in the film are depicted as strong, independent and multidimensional through an array of different characters and personality types. The dignified Eleanor, for example, a formidable antagonist, captures both the audience's frustration and sympathy with her unyielding loyalty to her family. Peik Lin, on the other hand, proves an absolute scene stealer with her wit and unabashed attitude.

One of the most empowering scenes in the film centers on Nick's cousin Astrid Leong, played by Gemma Chan. Her unwavering composure and politely reserved nature conceal a remarkably complex woman who delivers one of the film's most iconic lines in the face of her crumbling marriage. To her husband, she says, "It's not my job to make you feel like a man. I can't make you something you're not."

Taken as a whole, these characters' dynamism is a welcome change to standard Asian representation in the media; the film emphasizes the humanity and nuance of Asian people in a way that Hollywood has rarely explored.
One of the most common criticisms the film has received is that it does not represent every Asian experience. Given its focus on a specific and niche society within Asian culture - with primarily light-skinned characters of Chinese descent - this is a valid observation, which the actors, including Wu, have acknowledged.

It is worth noting, however, that given the diversity in the Asian community, a single movie could not capture every story and do them all justice. While "Crazy Rich Asians" is by no measure fully representative or a catch-all solution to

Hollywood's longstanding neglect of minorities, its greatest triumph is that it opens the door for better, more inclusive representation and more diverse Asian-American narratives.

As the film continues to dominate in the box office, "Crazy Rich Asians" proves to be a true testame nt to the importance of representation in the media and paves the way for a more inclusive Hollywood.

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'Crazy Rich Asians' Defies Hollywood Stereotypes

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★★★★★ At a time when Hollywood has started to realize that diversity sells, "Crazy Rich Asians" brings glitz and glamour to the rom-com genre and makes history in the process. Dynamic performances by Constance Wu and Henry Golding and nuanced characters who defy tropes make the story compelling, while the[Read More...]

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Crazy Rich Asians ended up being a successful movie box film. This showed different perspectives from other people who have watched this movie and what they thought of it. It is nice seeing other peoples perspectives on the different scenes.

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Warner Bros. / The Atlantic

When Warner Bros. announced in 2016 that it'd be making Crazy Rich Asians for the big screen, a few things were clear from the start: The movie would be an adaptation of Kevin Kwan's bestselling novel about a Chinese American economics professor who accompanies her Singaporean boyfriend back home for a wedding, only to discover that he's from one of the island's wealthiest families. It would be a rare, major U.S. production with an all-Asian cast. It would also be a romantic comedy, a genre Hollywood has fallen out of love with. And, crucially, it was clear that the stakes for the film would be incredibly-even impossibly-high. If it failed, the thinking went, would big studios want to make more Asian-driven stories in the future?

Less than a week after arriving in theaters, Crazy Rich Asians is unquestionably a critical and box-office success. Directed by Jon M. Chu and starring Constance Wu and the newcomer Henry Golding, the film has garnered praise for its performances, its sleek aesthetic, and its fresh take on the rom-com. The film boasts dazzling sets (despite a modest $30 million budget); a gorgeous, international cast; and a marketing campaign that leans into the film's significance for Asian representation in Hollywood.

Indeed, for many Asian Americans, seeing Crazy Rich Asians has been not only a fun time at the theater, but also a deeply emotional experience. Here is a summer movie that, in defiance of Hollywood history, casts Asian actors in an array of roles: as snobby socialites, formidable matriarchs, rude frat boys, self-possessed women of ambition, single mothers, and rich eye candy. Chu even turned down a massive deal with Netflix because he felt it was important for his movie to be seen in theaters. "It reflects self-worth and it reflects Asians coming to see this movie," he told Vulture. "That we are worth your time, your $15 to drive and park and struggle with buying tickets and crowds; to sit down in a dark room and say, 'Tell me a story.' We are worth that."

The film has also faced its share of criticism, which began months before its release and centered on casting decisions, its glamorization of wealth, and its overlooking of working-class and non-Chinese Singaporeans. So to what extent is the movie a "win" for Asian and Asian American visibility in Hollywood? And, as importantly, how good of a film is it? The Atlantic's Lenika Cruz, Emily Jan, Rosa Inocencio Smith, and Ashley Fetters discuss whether Crazy Rich Asians lived up to their expectations, and which key moments stayed with them after they left the theater.

Lenika Cruz: I'll be honest; I went into Crazy Rich Asians not expecting much, or at least trying not to. I knew a movie like this was never going to be all things to all people: a solid work of art, cast with the right actors, with the right balance of cultural specificity and broader accessibility, that satisfactorily reflected viewers' individual understandings of the Asian and Asian American experience. I went in only hoping to have a fine time, and you know what? I did! I laughed, I cried, I decided Michelle Yeoh (who played Eleanor) was my favorite human. I laughed some more.

And then there was, of course, the deeper stuff. I got goosebumps when Jasmine Chen's "Waiting for Your Return" kicked in at the beginning and she began singing in Mandarin (though I don't know the language). My heart leapt when I saw all the Asian names in the opening credits. I delighted whenever a familiar face-Constance Wu, Ken Jeong, Jimmy O. Yang, the list goes on-popped onscreen for the first time. Each time Chu decided to linger on a set of abs or squeeze in a random make-out session, I felt a tiny victory had been won for depictions of Asian sexuality in American pop culture. How about you, Emily? What mindset did you have going into the film, and how did you feel walking out of the theater?

Emily Jan: I didn't make it past the opening credits without bursting into spontaneous tears. Music can be such an emotional part of a movie experience to me, so the second Chen's cover started playing in Mandarin (transporting me to karaoke-filled, special-occasion dinners visiting my extended family in Taiwan, watching my ah-ma take the mic and command the room) at the top of the film, I was gone.

Like you, Lenika, I went in with mixed feelings. Was I (or anyone) going to relate to the 1 percent lifestyle? Will this perpetuate Chinese nouveau-riche stereotypes? Were the languages going to get butchered? How were historically subjugated Asian groups going to be represented?

I knew there were going to be elements of the movie that didn't sit right with me, but when I let myself just take the whole thing in, I couldn't help but delight in the many familiar aspects-the bustling street market, Weibo and WeChat icons flitting across the screen, the various a-yi mannerisms and phrases-all presented without explanatory commas. I don't think I realized, going into this, how long I had been waiting to see parts of me reflected on the big screen. And, oh yes, there were those ab scenes.

Rosa Inocencio Smith: I'm an unabashed lover of rom-coms, and I expected to have a good time. But I was also a little nervous; I had a feeling that I wasn't going to be part of the intended audience. I'm half Filipina, but I don't speak Tagalog, and I often pass for white-all of which has left me feeling shaky about my claim to an Asian identity over the years. So, I wondered, would I miss the references, like the ones you describe, Emily, that made the movie special? If I didn't get emotional, finally seeing Asians in leading romantic roles onscreen, would I be betraying my background? And if I did, would I be guilty of lumping all Asian cultures together, of pretending to be somebody I'm not?

Fortunately, I forgot my anxiety a few minutes in, swept up in the sheer fun of it. The soundtrack, with its glorious mash-ups of Chinese and American music! All of the beautiful women with their different styles and body types! All of the beautiful men with their toned physiques! These characters were reminders that there are so many ways to be Asian and beautiful (even if the cast is hardly representative of that full spectrum). It took me a while to process what it all meant to me, but several blocks away from the theater, I realized I couldn't stop smiling.

Ashley Fetters: My experience was a lot like yours, Rosa-I'm part Filipina and my adoptive family is white, and my familiarity with the type of crazy-rich Asians in Crazy Rich Asians extends only so far as the original novel's introduction to them does (though to be fair, the book takes a good deal of care to explain many of the class- and nationality-related nuances of mainland and overseas Chinese society). So I was a little worried going in that any specific cultural references not explained in the source material would sail right over my head.

Happily, I can think of only one instance in which that happened (which I'll talk about later). For the most part, I found Crazy Rich Asians to be precisely the kind of romantic comedy I've been craving ever since the much publicized death of the rom-com. It's a relatively low-stakes modern comedy of manners, just like the book; a delightful summer moviegoing treat in the same way the novel is a delightful beach read. I even thought it improved on the book slightly in that it snipped out a few particularly convoluted subplots (e.g. Astrid's husband Michael's affair).

Cruz: Unlike you, Ashley, I didn't read the novel-with the exception of the prologue, which I sought out after seeing the movie because I was curious how the writers adapted it into the opening scene. It turns out they're mostly similar: In the film, Eleanor Young (Yeoh), her son Nick Young (Golding), Eleanor's sister-in-law Felicity, and Felicity's daughter Astrid (Gemma Chan), arrive at a fancy London hotel one stormy night in 1995 after a long journey from Singapore. Eleanor asks that her family be shown to their suite, only to be informed by the manager that her family could find a place to stay in Chinatown. Moments later, Eleanor gets her revenge: She convinces her husband that they should buy the hotel, making her the new benefactress-a power she promptly uses to order her horrified employees to clean the muddy floor.

This scene actually had me thinking about the opening of Get Out (bear with me). Both sequences place viewers-whatever their race-into the shoes of a non-white protagonist during a racist encounter, forcing them to viscerally identify with the character's humiliation (or anger, or fear). Of course, Get Out and Crazy Rich Asians are dramatically different films, but their first minutes do a lot to tell audiences whom they're supposed to care about. The hotel scene has to do the tricky work of making the "crazy rich Asians" feel relatable, and it does that by making them-if only for a few moments-vulnerable. The result is you don't feel too bad for the xenophobic manager who might now find himself out of a job; when Eleanor coolly told him to fetch a mop, my audience cheered, seemingly reveling in his degradation alongside her. But the other not-so-subtle message here is that money, if you have enough of it, can make you untouchable. That it can be a deliciously effective weapon against prejudice. Or that it can, at least, buy you a break from the indignities of racism once in a while-a luxury that not many people have.

Smith: To your point about making the Young family accessible versus untouchable, Lenika, I was noticing the movie does a lot of that work through food. When we first see Nick and Rachel together, he's stealing bites of her dessert-it's a sweet, playful moment that sets the tone of their relationship.

Later on, the mouthwatering montage of street food that welcomes Rachel to Singapore communicates friendship and celebration-it's the kind of meal that can include all kinds of dishes and all kinds of people. But a similar montage in the Youngs' kitchen, when Eleanor is directing the cooks, shows off their wealth and her exacting standards. And in both of these scenes, disorienting swoops of the camera and quick cuts from close-up to close-up help to show that Rachel-who playfully (and oddly) tells Nick that a shaved-ice dessert looks "vomit-y"-is out of her comfort zone.

On the other hand, food is sometimes used to express care and comfort. Both Nick's and Rachel's mothers show love through food, prescribing herbal soup for tiredness and ginseng tea for heartbreak. In the scene when the Youngs are making dumplings together, we get to see a softer, more down-to-earth side of the family and the teamwork that brings them together. We also, of course, see the pressures that comes with that closeness via Ah-Ma's criticism of Eleanor's dumpling technique.

My favorite food-related detail: the Tupperware meals that Rachel's mom packs for her to take on the plane to Singapore. (If you spotted it, Mrs. Chu is also holding a Tupperware when she says goodbye to Peik Lin at the end of the film!) It's such a tiny detail, but I'd bet it's one that resonates across the Asian diaspora-it certainly reminded me of my lola, who once had to be talked out of bringing a ham on the plane to my brother's graduation. When food means family, packing it up to send with your loved ones is a way of staying close to them even when they've moved overseas. And like Eleanor says in the dumpling scene, traditional dishes are one of the major ways that many immigrant families stay connected with their heritage.

Fetters: For as widely appealing as we all seem to have found the movie to be, I really respect how at certain points Crazy Rich Asians resists bending over backwards to make sure non-Asian (or non Chinese, or non-Singaporean) viewers "get" it. Sure, overall it does hew to a pretty universally relatable storyline about the tensions between family loyalty and romantic loyalty, but there's a pivotal moment in the script that I found really striking for its deliberate decision not to be universally understandable: the game of mahjong between Rachel and Eleanor, which serves as a backdrop to the final showdown between the two over whether Rachel and Nick's relationship would continue. (It's not in the book; this scene was added just for the film adaptation.)

Mahjong is most commonly played in China and in Chinese communities, and the fact that there's a dramatic close-up of the markings on one specific tile in Rachel's hand, but no explanation of what that tile means in the game or how it changes Rachel's chances, means you have to be familiar with the rules and strategy of mahjong to understand precisely what's happening in the scene. And if you know mahjong, it's likely you've been considerably well exposed to Chinese culture more broadly, too. In other words, in this moment, the movie implicitly assumes its viewer is Chinese or is somehow otherwise well versed in Chinese culture. (Though of course, there are enough context clues given that even someone like me, with no mahjong experience, could understand the outcome of the game at the scene's conclusion.)

It's not uncommon for big-budget, mainstream Hollywood movies to assume audiences are familiar with games and sports ubiquitous within particular cultures. It's just that most of the time, those games and sports are ubiquitous within one particular culture; namely, middle-class white culture. Plenty of mainstream Hollywood features assume their audiences understand baseball or American football or golf; it's not uncommon to see a dramatic poker scene feature a close-up shot of one player's hand, absent of any explanation in the script of how poker works. If you've never played poker, you might have to rely on context clues to pick up what's happening-and I think a lot of viewers who don't usually find themselves on the outside of an insider reference might have to do exactly that with Crazy Rich Asians ' mahjong scene. But it's a bold move on the film's part to deliberately tailor its assumptions about audience familiarity to a different audience.

Jan: Ah yes, that mahjong scene. Of course there's a mahjong scene. But this one is so well done, establishing Rachel's strength and pride in her identity, while giving Yeoh's Eleanor some added nuance and vulnerability. I'm totally with Ashley on how awesome it is that the audience doesn't get hand-held through this scene. Even if you're not familiar with mahjong ( here's a great explainer of that scene), you know what has happened here, and you recognize that Eleanor and Rachel have been playing a mental and strategic game-in that moment, but also figuratively throughout the film.

I will also add that it's just a gorgeously shot sequence-using the fluid movements and rhythm of the game to move along the tension in the scene. The lines are sparse, but they're delivered with such quiet intensity (after all, Rachel knows better than to make a scene, lest anyone at the table lose face). And boy, did I cry- just as Wu did, while shooting that scene -when her mom joins her at the end and they walk off together in unison, almost physically supporting each other.

Cruz: Having seen Crazy Rich Asians twice, I can say the mahjong scene (which made sense to me even though I don't know the game) holds up for me as the movie's standout. I loved that a film that was otherwise so indulgent opted for such a stripped-down climactic moment, one whose power derived from its subtlety. Wu is spectacular in the scene, and the shots are edited together perfectly. It is, I think, the real spiritual ending of the movie-one that's more satisfying than Nick's charming and flustered airplane proposal, and the final, fireworks-filled rooftop party.

It's interesting to me how, despite the fact that this movie is very much a comedy, the scenes that stuck with all of us weren't the most spectacular ones or the ones we laughed the loudest at. I can't remember the last rom-com that drove friends to text me things like, "Did you cry? I'm worried I'm going to cry" because they couldn't wait to see so many people who looked like them on the big screen. I can't remember the last rom-com that inspired Twitter threads as powerful as the one HuffPost's Kimberly Yam shared after seeing Crazy Rich Asians, in which she detailed the corrosive, cumulative effects that everyday racism had on her ability to love herself and her Chinese heritage. "You're 25 years old. You see a movie with an all-Asian cast at a screening and for some reason you're crying and you can't stop. You've never seen a cast like this in Hollywood. Everyone is beautiful," Yam concluded. "You're so happy you're Chinese."

The terms "Asian" and "Asian American" can, unfortunately, serve to flatten myriad identities and experiences into a unified abstraction that doesn't actually exist. But to me there's nothing abstract about the enthusiasm for this movie-even the deeply conflicted enthusiasm-that I've seen from viewers of Asian descent in America. In some ways, both the affection for and the sharp criticism of Crazy Rich Asians are symptoms of the same thing: the desire to see more films like this one out in the world, and the fact that there's a massive, passionate audience out there that is paying attention.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters@theatlantic.com.

Lenika Cruz is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic, where she covers culture.

Emily Jan is the art director of TheAtlantic.com.

Ashley Fetters is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

Rosa Inocencio Smith is an assistant editor at The Atlantic.

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Which 'Crazy Rich Asians' Scenes Were Most Memorable?

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When Warner Bros. announced in 2016 that it'd be making Crazy Rich Asians for the big screen, a few things were clear from the start: The movie would be an adaptation of Kevin Kwan's bestselling novel about a Chinese American economics professor who accompanies her Singaporean boyfriend back home for a wedding, only to discover that he's from one of the island's wealthiest families.

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This breaks down the background of each character and that Eleanor was in the same shoes as Rachel and was not going to make it easy for her. For Eleanor is was duty over passion unlike Rachels Mother allowed her to follow her passion. Eleanor does not like that Rachel Chu is American.

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CRAZY RICH ASIANS
How To Be The Winner Over A Boyfriend's Mother's Envy

Jon Chu's Crazy Rich Asians is about crazy wealth. But it's really about so much more. It's about the clashes between old money and new; between privilege and disadvantage; between American born Asians and those calling Asia home; between following passion and giving into duty. Mostly it's about a boyfriend's mother's envy. And, at the film's center we find this conflict between a traditional Singaporean mother and her son's Asian American girlfriend. At an even deeper level, Crazy Rich Asians is really about two different parts of that mother battling against each other.

The Girlfriend

Rachel Chu ( Constance Wu) is the youngest Economics professor at NYU. She's passionate, she's smart, she's driven, she's fun; she's warm. She's in love with Nick Young ( Henry Golding) and he's in love with her. They live in New York City and they've been together a year.

Now they're traveling to Singapore for Nick's best friend, Colin's wedding ( Chris Pang). Nick wants everyone "to meet the brilliant Rachel Chu." Little does she know what she's getting into.

You see; Nick Young is the son of one of the wealthiest old money families in Asia. They're as close to Singapore royalty as you can get. He didn't want Rachel to know because, with her, he likes who he is. He's battling against his history too - but in a different way than his mom.

Nick wants to be himself. Eleanor Young ( Michelle Yeoh) gave herself up.

Crazy Rich Asians begins in 1995. What happened then helps us understand Eleanor Young. But more to the point, it gives us our first clue to who Rachel becomes in Eleanor's mind.

The Boyfriend's Mother

In 1995, Eleanor and her two young children enter London's Carlthorpe Hotel. Although she has a reservation for a large and exclusive Penthouse suite, the manager doesn't believe her (and certainly doesn't want her in the hotel). She's Asian. He tries to turn her away.

She asks to use the phone to call her husband. The Manager refuses. Eleanor feels the sting of hateful dismissal. She goes outside to a phone booth in the pouring rain.

After making her call, she re-enters the lobby just as the elderly hotel owner rushes off the elevator to greet her warmly. He turns to the cowed Manager and says: "Meet Mrs. Eleanor Young, the Carlthorpes' new owner."

Eleanor walks off with a flourish. Reversing the dismissal, she tells the Manager to clean the mud off the floor.

But, as we will see, Eleanor can't so easily wipe away her self-hate.

The Why's Of A Boyfriend's Mother's Envy?

In 2015, Rachel Chu becomes the recipient of the same cruel dismissal. Eleanor isn't sparring with Rachel, though. She's fighting a part of herself that feels never good enough; no matter how hard she's tried to become someone else.
Eleanor's "All Wrong" Self
Eleanor was a girl much like Rachel. She wasn't from the "right" family; she didn't have money. She was studying law when she met her husband at Cambridge. She withdrew to be the "right kind of wife," to help him with his business and to raise their children.

Rachel won't be anything more than Eleanor. And she certainly won't have it easier than Eleanor did. Eleanor will make sure of it. She'll even ruin things if she can. That's the goal of envy.

She'll follow in Ah Ma's footsteps.

Ah Ma ( Lisa Lu), Nick's grandmother, didn't accept Eleanor either. She wasn't good enough. Eleanor wasn't her first choice or her second. She made Eleanor suffer. It took years for Eleanor to gain favor in Ah Ma's eyes.

She even had to give up her son.

Eleanor let Nick live with Ah Ma as a little boy, so he would be the favorite when she could not. Eleanor still carries that younger self inside. But, she won't feel that way again. Rachel will.
Not "One Of Them"
Arriving in Singapore, Rachel and Nick are greeted at the airport by Colin and his fiancé, Araminta ( Sonoya Mizuno). They're warm and wild. Rachel's first introduction to Nick's old life is of street vendors and every day fun in the city.

But, this isn't Nick's real life. His status in Singapore is not at all "every day." He's the most wealthy, eligible and sought after bachelor in the city. And no one (especially all the jealous women who want him and will make Rachel pay) can stand that an American born woman has already taken him.

No, Rachel is definitely not one of them. And, she makes a lot of "faux pauxs" as she tries to ingratiate herself to Nick's mom.

She hugs Eleanor in an overly friendly way; she spills red wine on Nick's white shirt at a cocktail party; she tells Eleanor about following her passion for Economics to gain her position at NYU.
Duty Over Passion
Eleanor is not about following passion. She turns up her nose: "Following your passion? That's so American. Your mom must be very open-minded. Not like us who shape our children."

In her cold and superior way, Eleanor lets Rachel know what's expected: women like Eleanor help their husbands. They do what's required of wives in her position. Even giving the mother-in-law all the power.

Eleanor tries to split Nick and Rachel apart from the get-go.

Sure, she wants her son home. She expects him to partner with his father in business ("When kids are away from home too long they forget who they are.")

But it's actually more than meets the eye. Rachel reminds Eleanor of a past she doesn't want to remember or re-live.

She won't let another stronger, seemingly more deserving, woman take away her son ... again.

So, when Rachel admires her large emerald engagement ring; Eleanor pointedly tells her the story of how she gained Ah Ma's approval by learning her duties and performing them well.

That meant giving up her passions, her self, and her son.
Dueling With "Inferiority"
Eleanor has had to fight off feelings of inferiority for years. Now, she'll make Rachel pay the price: "I had no idea the work and sacrifice it would take. But, having been through it, I know this for certain:"

"You will never be enough."

Rachel has her own fears of not measuring up. She's the daughter of an immigrant mother, Kerry Chu ( Kheng Hua Tan), who struggled to make it on her own. But, her good friend and college roommate, Peik Lin ( Awkwafina) bolsters Rachel up:

"Make her respect you." That's no easy task.

Eleanor makes Rachel suffer. She rejects her at the wedding; alone while Nick is best man: "Rachel, how lovely to see you. Our row is full."

Rachel shows her up. She befriends a Princess (also an Economist), animatedly engaged while Eleanor watches. Touched, Rachel cries as Colin marries Aramanta and Nick mouths, "I love you."

Rachel is what Eleanor is not. Eleanor has to win.

She hires a private investigator to find out who Rachel Chu really is. He digs up a story about Rachel's birth that even Rachel doesn't know. Eleanor forbids Nick from "degrading" the family.

Rachel, devastated, runs away to Peik Lin's and takes to bed. She won't answer Nick's calls. She won't accept his proposal of marriage. She prepares to leave Singapore for New York.

Eleanor thinks nothing of hurting and humiliating Rachel to get her way.

How The Girlfriend Wins

For Rachel, it's not about money, duty, or winning.

But, she can't leave Singapore without facing down Eleanor and letting her know who Rachel Chu really is. She challenges Eleanor to Majong. As they play, this back and forth transpires between them:

Eleanor: "You aren't like us."

Rachel: "You don't want Nick to be happy."

Rachel has the winning tile. She hides it, though, and lets Eleanor think she wins the game. But, Rachel's real winning tile is her love for Nick:

"There's no winning. If he chooses me, he'll lose his family. If he chooses you, he'll resent you. I know I'm enough. But, when he marries another lucky girl and you're playing with your grandchildren, I want you to remember that it's because of me: a poor, low class, immigrant girl, raised by a single-mom, who didn't want him to lose his mother again."

But ... Does The Girlfriend Really Win?

Crazy Rich Asians ends as Nick shows up on the airplane before Rachel takes off for NYC. He won't let her go without him. He proposes again to a cheering crowd - but this time, with Eleanor's emerald ring.

Is this a peace offering? Or is it a backhanded way to let Rachel know that if she marries her son, she's expected to play a role she can only fail at: being as good at self-sacrifice as Eleanor?

The best ending would be Eleanor's acceptance and support. Yet, Eleanor's emerald might be another attempt to play the winning hand.

Envy doesn't give up easily.

Does Eleanor have it in her to soften and let Rachel in? And, can Rachel hold onto her passion and herself?

We'll see. The fight might not be over yet. Only the upcoming sequel will tell.

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CRAZY RICH ASIANS How To Be The Winner Over A Boyfriend's Mother's Envy - Characters on the Couch

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Jon Chu's Crazy Rich Asians is about crazy wealth. But it's really about so much more. It's about the clashes between old money and new; between privilege and disadvantage; between American born Asians and those calling Asia home; between following passion and giving into duty. Mostly it's about a boyfriend's mother's envy.

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This movie Crazy Rich Asians shows a cast of powerful, strong, independent women throughout the film. From Nicks cousin telling her husband after finding about him cheating that it's not her job to make him feel like a man. Rachel standing up to Nick's mother is another example of strong independent women.

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One of the most profound things about Crazy Rich Asians is how it shows Asian and Asian-American people simply living. It sounds basic, but when you consider Hollywood history, much of which erases Asian characters and Asian culture altogether, you know that this is major.As nearly every advertisement has read: "it's not a movie; it's a movement." But beyond its breezy, romantic, and genuine laugh-out-loud moments, it also shows the power of single women - particularly single women of color. And even more significantly, it highlights the grace, strength, and sheer self-efficacy that embolden so many single mothers and their daughters.

Spoilers for Crazy Rich Asians lie ahead.

A Game of Mahjong

There is a great moment towards the end of Crazy Rich Asians that clenches this theme so eloquently and succinctly. It's when Rachel (Constance Wu) invites her potential mother-in-law Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh) - who's spent much of the film lambasting her for being a simple, working class, American girl who comes from a broken, no-name family - for a game of mahjong. At this point, Rachel is packed and ready to go back to America after enduring one insult after another throughout her time in Singapore to meet her boyfriend Nick's (Henry Goulding) snobby family (and has even broken up with him as a result).

But she's not satisfied with the fact that Eleanor 1) thinks she's successfully pushed Rachel away on her terms and 2) believes that being raised by a single mother means she is beneath her. So, this mahjong game isn't about Rachel trying to win or compete with Eleanor. Rather, it's an opportunity for Rachel to get her point across - she is leaving on her own will and her single mother Kerry (Kheng Hua Tan), who's actually seated across the room at this time, is where she learned to be so self-possessed. In lieu of rare jewels and expensive properties, Rachel's inheritance has been her mother's strength.

It's a strength that comes from Kerry's heartbreaking backstory, which is told in greater detail in author Kevin Kwan's original book (much of which is left out of the film). What we do know about Kerry in the film remains astounding and is so indicative of many immigrants' stories. She is an Asian immigrant who put herself through college in America while working at the same time, and eventually rose to become a top real estate agent in California - all while she raised a child. There are few things more inspiring, more honorable than that, and Rachel proves that in the mahjong scene.

Long story short, Rachel ends up losing the game to Eleanor even after claiming her mother is the one who taught her to play. Before she leaves the table though, Rachel looks Eleanor directly in her eyes and informs the older woman that she broke up with her son - not the other way around - and will walk away from this game and this country with the pride, confidence, and class that her American single mother gave her.

Though it's not about one-upping Eleanor, it's hard to not miss Rachel beaming as she exists the scene, leaving Eleanor's mouth agape. While she's walking away, we see Kerry stand up, give Eleanor a quick once-over, and follow her daughter out the door. What's amazing about this scene is that none of it is in the book - it's one of the film's many unique aspects. In fact, it seemed like director Jon M. Chu set out specifically to amplify the feminism of Kwan's story.

A Cast of Powerful Women

This theme of female empowerment - specifically, empowered single women, without the influence or sometimes even the presence of a male figure - is something that radiates out of every single woman in Crazy Rich Asians. Even Eleanor, who in the book is almost completely irredeemable, carries a regality that far surpasses her decadent wardrobe. In fact, there's a moment in the film where she reveals to Rachel that she gets her strength from struggle - from having to prove, unsuccessfully, to her own mother-in-law that she was good enough for her husband (who's never seen because he's on a business trip throughout the entire film). Eleanor seems at first like she's trying to endear to Rachel's current struggle to impress her, until she says that her own plan to win over her mother-in-law failed miserably - implying that Rachel's will too. There's a hurt Eleanor masks beneath an ironclad exterior to which many women of color, particularly mothers, can relate. It's a determination to keep her family together, a fierce love for her child, a desperation to retain a certain legacy that ignites this otherwise prickly character.

The same could be said about Astrid (Gemma Chan). She's Nick's cousin and another rich Asian - not crazy, though - who's married to Michael (Pierre Png), a man who's had to work his way up to not even have half the bank account his wife has. She loves him, and they share a son together. But his own inadequacy sends him reeling from their relationship and into another woman's arms. Meanwhile, Astrid has been hiding her lavish shopping sprees and shielding him from her wealth to make him feel better about himself. That is, until she decides that it is not her job to make him feel like a man.

After discovering that he's cheating on her, she grabs all the her lavish presents she's bought for herself and leans in to a power she's dimmed for too long, leaving him and stepping out on her own as a single mother. Michael's weakness compels her to epitomize her own strength as a woman, a mother, and yes, a wealthy Asian - with no apologies. Just think: the film merely graces the tip of her inspiring and distinctly female story that is a bit more elaborated in the book. It's a testament to Chan's performance and understanding of her character that she is able to bring out Astrid's every nuance.

Similarly, Peik Lin (Awkwafina) is a total boss bitch - in the best way possible. Though she may be seen as Rachel's cheerleader and makeover stylist in the film, she owns her sexuality and quick wit in front of everyone - man and woman. The book reveals Peik Lin to be a high-powered real estate guru who knows everything about every piece of property in Singapore, including Nick's family's castle, but in both versions, she is quick to help remind Rachel of her own strength and power that she embodies so naturally. Peik Lin, like Rachel, went to college in the States, but came back to her native home to make her own empire that is encouraged - but notably not financially supported - by her flamboyant family that you see in the film. She's rich, yes, but embraces her affluence with humility, hard work and intelligence mixed with the utmost flair.

There are so many boxes Crazy Rich Asians can check off: it's groundbreaking, endlessly charming, and beautifully and unapologetically Asian. But it is also an amazingly feminist story that highlights the power of the single woman and mother.

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'Crazy Rich Asians' is a Tribute to the Power of Single Mothers and Independent Women

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One of the most profound things about Crazy Rich Asians is how it shows Asian and Asian-American people simply living. It sounds basic, but when you consider Hollywood history, much of which erases Asian characters and Asian culture altogether, you know that this is major.As nearly every advertisement has read: "it's not a movie; it's a movement."

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It is interesting learning about the Mahjong scene because when I watched it I did not understand what it meant or what they were playing. I knew it was from the Chinese culture but was unaware of what they were doing. What a cool game from their culture. Now reading this I better understand this scene.

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This story is part of a group of stories called

First-person essays and interviews with unique perspectives on complicated issues.

One of the most beautiful things about Crazy Rich Asians is how it refuses to explain many of its most intrinsically Asian elements. That lack of training wheels is intentional: As director Jon M. Chu told me, "We didn't want to give people an excuse to think of this world as some kind of obscure, exotic fantasyland - this is a real place, with real culture, history and tradition, and instead of just giving them answers to their questions, we want them to have conversations."

The movie's Singapore-specific local color and broadly Asian cultural nuances are indeed fairly Google-able, and can readily be contextualized through polite discussions with actual Asian people. But there's one scene in particular that has been resiliently enigmatic to audiences of many backgrounds, both Asian and non-Asian ... and it's a pivotal one: the mahjong scene.

That's especially true for fans of the book, who won't recognize it; it's original to the movie. It was inserted in part because Michelle Yeoh, who delivers an amazing steel-and-silk performance as the movie's main antagonist, refused to play the stock villainous tiger mom from the book. This scene provides her with critical impetus toward her eventual redemption.

But it's also true for people who don't understand the complex rules of the game, which aren't intuitive and are often different depending on the region of the world. So here's a quick primer on the game of mahjong itself, as well as its significance to the film in that pivotal scene. Spoilers abound below, so if you haven't yet watched the deliriously warm and funny movie, crawl out from under that rock and see it before reading further.

Mahjong, explained

A quick primer on mahjong itself. A fast-paced, rummy-style game in which four players attempt to form sets of three or four matching or sequenced tiles, it's hugely popular not only across Asia but around the world. Its origins are Chinese: All the way back in 1927, about a century after the game was invented, the Chinese scholar and essayist Hu Shi complained that mahjong was so popular that it had become China's "national pastime," calculating that the millions of games of mahjong played each day by Chinese were the equivalent of 4 million hours of wasted time daily.

But most Chinese don't see the game as "wasted time." In fact, despite his grousing, Hu himself was an inveterate player who spent many an evening tossing the tiles. Mao Zedong once said the game should not be underestimated - because "If you know how to play it, you'll have a better understanding of the relationship between chance and necessity. There's philosophy in mahjong."

Mahjong remains extraordinarily popular among Chinese immigrants and beyond, and it's featured in both the film The Joy Luck Club and the TV show Fresh Off the Boat, both of which depict Asian-American post-immigrant life. (Mandatory disclosure: My son Hudson Yang plays Eddie on Fresh Off the Boat; Crazy Rich Asians' Constance Wu plays his mother.)

When asked about the mahjong scene, Chu told me, "Never thought we'd have to explain it," and laughed. "I wanted it to be very specifically choreographed, and obviously, for it to happen that fast is almost impossible. But I wanted to intercut the game with the conversation, so it was critical for them to know exactly what they were doing at every moment. We got a mahjong expert - basically a gambling addict! - to help choreograph that game, to make it authentic."

The closest Western analog to Mahjong might be gin rummy. The goal of the game is to reach certain combinations of tiles before your opponents. Tiles have numbers and suits, which can be combined into winning hands through sets of either matching numbers or suited numerically sequential tiles, just like in gin rummy. Each player's hand is 13 tiles throughout the game, though the pickup of a 14th tile is needed to win.

Here is a very simplified explanation of the options that, in combination, can compose winning hands:

1. Chow, which is three tiles in a sequential number sequence of the same suit

2. Pong, which is three of the exact same tile

3. Plus a pair of the exact same tile, called the "eye"

Communication, negotiation, strategy, and even cooperation are far more critical in mahjong than in most card games. Watching what your opponents discard as well as the completed sets they lay out in front of them - when one steals a tile that another player has discarded, one must expose the completed set - is the key to understanding what each is attempting to accomplish.

What the climactic mahjong scene means

In the movie, the mahjong scene takes place in a pivotal scene after our protagonist Rachel Chu, played by Constance Wu, has been rejected by her boyfriend Nick's mother, Eleanor (played by Michelle Yeoh). This is because Eleanor learns that Rachel was born to a single mother who fled China for the States. However, unbeknownst to Eleanor, Nick has gone against his mother's wishes and proposed to Rachel anyway.

In the mahjong scene, Rachel and Eleanor go head to head right after this stunning twist. Rachel invites Eleanor to meet with her at a mahjong parlor - a gambling house frequented mostly by working- or middle-class older folks who rent tables by the hour. The persistent clacking of tiles is a sound familiar to anyone who has been around people playing mahjong.

When Eleanor arrives, she takes the open seat across from Rachel and is offered the role of dealer - the "East" seat. The four seats in mahjong are named after the compass directions, which plays an important role both in the rules of the game and in the symbolism of the scene. Eleanor, in the role of the "East," representing Asia, is the player in control. Rachel, sitting across from her, represents America - the "West."

Early in the scene, Eleanor completes a "pong," or a matched set of tiles. This move demonstrates that Eleanor plans to win using the strategy of matched tiles, and she's making Rachel aware. In this moment, Eleanor tells Rachel that her mother taught her how to play too.

As the conversation continues, Rachel asks Eleanor why she didn't like her from the very beginning - even before her family history was revealed. Eleanor expounds on the difference between Asians and Americans, noting how even though Asian Americans look Asian, they are American at heart. Referencing a Hokkien term that means "our kind of people," she says that Asian Americans are not kaki lang. Remember, in this game, Eleanor is trying to create a winning hand comprising all matches of the same exact tile - an "extended family" that's metaphorically composed of kaki lang.

The camera then cuts to show a number of discarded bamboo tiles. Discarded bamboo calls to mind a frequently used term for Westernized overseas Asians, this one Cantonese: jook sing, which literally means "empty bamboo." It's a slang term that's the Chinese equivalent of the Asian-American term "banana" - yellow on the outside, white on the inside - cited earlier in the film by Peik Lin (the frenetically hilarious Awkwafina). The "empty" bamboo tiles are scattered alongside the tiles for East and West, not truly part of either, representing Eleanor's perception of Rachel.

At this point, Rachel drops the bomb on Eleanor that Nick proposed to her, telling her that he said he'd be willing to walk away from everything - his family, his family's wealth - to be with her. Right as Rachel is saying this, she draws the most important tile in the game: an eight of bamboo.

The number eight is of huge symbolic importance to the Chinese; it resembles the character for fortune and is considered a sign of wealth, prosperity, and happiness. It's why so many Chinese license plates, phone numbers, and even street addresses contain eights. Monterey Park, the first city in San Gabriel Valley, California, to become a suburban destination for wealthy Chinese, was considered a particularly propitious place to live because it had an 818 area code.

While an eight doesn't have special value in the game of mahjong, we see that the eight of bamboo is also the one tile Rachel needs to complete her hand. This is a winning tile for her. But Rachel knows something else, based on her observation of how the game has played out (remember, she's a game theory professor!): It's Eleanor's winning tile too.

She then discloses to Eleanor that she turned Nick down. Eleanor is dumbfounded. "Only a fool folds a winning hand," she says, referring to Nick's proposal.

This is critical, because in the very first scene of the movie, Rachel demonstrated through a poker game with one of her TAs that to be successful in any game where psychology and choice are a factor, you can't play "not to lose" - you have to play to win.

Rachel explains: When it comes to her marriage with Nick, Eleanor has guaranteed there's no winning outcome for them. Nick choosing Rachel means he'd lose his mother and his family. Nick choosing his family means he might resent Eleanor forever - thus losing his mother anyway. Lose-lose.

So she decided to seize control of the situation and choose for him. But she doesn't want it to happen without Eleanor knowing exactly why it's happening and what Rachel is giving up to make it possible.

She tells Eleanor that she knows Nick will eventually find someone else, someone that his family approves of - that's what every generation of Youngs has done before him, after all. And while her own heart will be broken, as she says, she loves him so much that she is willing to suffer if it means that Nick will keep the thing that is at the heart of Asian culture, and of his story: his family.

That's when Rachel throws out the eight of bamboo as a discard - folding her winning hand, knowing that Eleanor will pick it up and declare victory. While this happens, she explains that when Nick finds the proper match in the future, she wants Eleanor to understand that the only reason it occurred was because a "poor, raised by a single mother, low-class immigrant nobody" - Rachel - made it possible.

She then reveals her hand, which would have won, making it clear to the whole table what she's done, and walks away.

In this move, Rachel has demonstrated to Eleanor three critical things. The first is that she loves Nick enough to put his future ahead of hers. The second is that she understands that family should always come first, something that Eleanor suspected she didn't comprehend as a jook sing Asian American. And the third is that Rachel is strong, self-sacrificing, and courageous - a lot like Eleanor herself. Instead of "never being enough" for Nick, a line Eleanor uses to surgically destroy Rachel in an earlier scene, she's most likely exactly what Nick needs.

Knowing all of this context isn't necessary for the scene to work, but it certainly adds depth to understand the symbolism of the game.
This essay was adapted from a post on Angry Asian Man. For a more detailed look at mahjong, .
Jeff Yang is a co-host of the podcast They Call Us Bruce, a featured contributor for CNN Opinion, and a columnist for South China Morning Post's Inkstone magazine. His elder son, Hudson Yang, plays Eddie on ABC's Fresh Off the Boat.

First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

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The symbolism of Crazy Rich Asians' pivotal mahjong scene, explained

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First-person essays and interviews with unique perspectives on complicated issues. One of the most beautiful things about Crazy Rich Asians is how it refuses to explain many of its most intrinsically Asian elements. That lack of training wheels is intentional: As director Jon M.

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Kevin Kwan on his movie Crazy Rich Asians never thought his was movie be a success. He didn't ever even think his book would get published let alone a move be made and be a box seller. He now has plans to write about average asians or poor asians.

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From left, Michelle Yeoh, Henry Golding and Constance Wu in a scene from "Crazy Rich Asians." "The story at the heart of it is about a family," said Kevin Kwan, the author of the novel from which the new movie was adapted. Credit Credit Sanja Bucko/Warner Bros. Entertainment, via Associated Press

With its lavish banquets, helicopter escapes and sweeping descriptions of Singapore's lush coast, Kevin Kwan's novel "Crazy Rich Asians" practically begs to be turned into a film. But when Mr. Kwan wrote the book, which was published in 2013, he never thought his set pieces would spring to life. "I told a story that I think was very cinematic. Did I ever dare to dream it would ever happen? Absolutely not," he said in a phone interview with The New York Times on Friday. "I didn't think I would even get it published to begin with."

Not only did the book get published and top best-seller lists, but the ensuing film has stormed to No. 1 at the box office, buoyed by warm reviews and aggressive theater-renting campaigns. The film has carried the weight of being the first Hollywood film with an all-Asian cast and a contemporary story since "The Joy Luck Club" in 1993. And even though the movie has been out for less than a week, Mr. Kwan says it has already increased the appetite for different kinds of stories in Hollywood. These are edited excerpts from Friday's conversation.
What was the best reaction from someone who has seen the movie so far?
I was in Philadelphia, and there were two white dudes in their 50s who went to a screening. One of the guys admitted: "I haven't cried in a movie in the longest time - but I cried." And his friend was like, "Yeah, I cried too."

This was not the target demographic. But it's funny to see them admitting to this and being so surprised by their own reaction. It's great to hear that, because that's what we believed from the beginning: that this story transcends race.

[ Read A. O. Scott's review of "Crazy Rich Asians."]
The story explores the world of the uber-rich in Singapore, where you grew up. What was the most obscene show of wealth you saw as a child?
This made it into "Crazy Rich Asians": There was this family that had recently suffered a personal tragedy. A Christian counselor had come over and was destroying everything that was Chinese or had any dragons or idols. I was 10 years old, and remember watching from the sidelines in this enormous mansion as they were tipping vases to the floor. The maids are weeping: They see fortunes they can't even make in their whole lifetime being destroyed right in front of them - and they have to literally sweep it up. I can't make this stuff up.

The book is a satire of this culture of excess, but Hollywood loves to glorify wealth. Were you worried that critique would be lost in translation?
Jon [Chu, the film's director] and I had many many long talks over this. I knew and understood his vision: that even though there are decadent scenes, you look beyond that. The story at the heart of it is about a family, a couple, a mother and a son. And there's where the true crazy richness lies in the story.

While other authors option their books for thousands of dollars, you optioned the book to the production companies Color Force and Ivanhoe for $1. What did you do with that dollar?
I don't think I actually got that dollar, quite frankly. Basically, I was trying to make myself as amenable to the deal as possible. I didn't want things to be held up by money. I wanted the money to be spent hiring a great screenwriter - to really adapt my book rather than to pay me some stupid option fee. And it gave me a partnership stake in the whole process. So it was worth every dollar - it was worth that dollar. [laughs]
[Read how Asian-Americans are the most There was controversy over the casting of Henry Golding, who is half white, to play Nick, the male romantic lead. Did that debate come up during the casting process? economically divided racial group Over the past few months, have you seen a change in potential opportunities for Asian and Asian-American stories in Hollywood? in the United States]
It definitely came up in the room and was something we deliberated about for a very long time. We were hyper-conscious of what would happen and how people would respond. But at the end of the day we really felt that he really was the perfect Nick. We had to put aside our own issues to see that.

I understand the issue, and I'm glad it came up. But being from Singapore, which is such a multicultural society, and having so many cousins who are mixed race - and seeing their struggle as mixed-race Asians who aren't fully accepted on either side - I really have a lot of empathy for that. How are they not Asian? How is Henry Golding, who has spent most of his life living in Asia, considered not Asian? Fifty years ago he wouldn't be let into a lot of private clubs just based on the way he looks.

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"I've written three books about the 1 percent," Mr. Kwan said. "Now, it's all about exploring this wide spectrum." Credit Amanda Edwards/WireImage, via Getty Images

Absolutely. There's tremendous interest now in projects that I'm developing going forward. I see it also with the cast: All of them have different pots that are boiling. They're being offered different roles and possibilities. We're seeing how all these actors are in demand in a whole new way, and in projects that aren't just Asian based. The climate's already changing.
Now that you've broken the bamboo ceiling, what kinds of stories are you interested in telling?
Crazy poor Asians. Or just crazy average Asians. I've written three books about the 1 percent. Now, it's all about exploring this wide spectrum and showing other facets of Asians around the world. I want to show how they can be as cool as the crazy rich Asians, if not more.

I'm also developing a TV series with Amazon. It's going to be set in Hong Kong, and it's about the most powerful and ruthless family there. It's going to be very different in tone and subject matter.
[Spoilers ahead:] The post-credits scene of the film sets up a new potential love interest for the spurned Astrid (Gemma Chan). Is the scene a harbinger of a sequel?
I really hope so. A few of the actors and me, we snuck into one of the screenings in Union Square and were watching as the credits rolled. The minute that scene played, people were screaming. It was hilarious to watch.

We are definitely trying to set things up for a sequel. But it all depends on this movie performing well and having legs. This is not up to us.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Savoring the Success Of a 'Crazy Rich' Tale. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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'This Story Transcends Race': Kevin Kwan on the Appeal of 'Crazy Rich Asians'

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With its lavish banquets, helicopter escapes and sweeping descriptions of Singapore's lush coast, Kevin Kwan's novel "Crazy Rich Asians" practically begs to be turned into a film. But when Mr. Kwan wrote the book, which was published in 2013, he never thought his set pieces would spring to life.

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The reactions from Singaporeans, Chinese, and Malaysians about Crazy Rich Asians. As Singaporeans were upset because it did not represent majority of Singapore or their culture. Malaysians were upset that the scene that were filmed in Malaysia represented Singapore.

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How do Asians react to 'Crazy Rich Asians'?

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While some think the movie fails to give an accurate portrayal of Asians, others are just happy that Asians are in the spotlight

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Rachel Chu in Crazy Rich Asians was seen almost like a hero because of the strong, independent, powerful women she portrays. She stayed true to herself, never tried being someone she wasn't, and made sure to walk away with pride about who she was. She was confident in herself and had strength from her single mother.

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News and reviews of 2019's biggest summer blockbuster films.

I'm not sure any Hollywood romantic comedy has hit the big screen bearing more expectations than Crazy Rich Asians. It's the first contemporary English-language Hollywood movie with an almost all-Asian cast in a quarter-century (the last was 1993's The Joy Luck Club). And in risk-averse Hollywood, that means the film's reception has huge implications for Asian and Asian-American actors and filmmakers in all kinds of genres.

That's a lot of pressure for any film, but especially a romantic comedy - a genre that's been sidelined for the past decade and is still considered less artisticallyimportant than prestige dramas or big-budget action movies.

Thankfully, all that pressure has pressed this film into a diamond: Directed by Jon M. Chu, Crazy Rich Asians is fun, funny, gorgeous, and swoon-worthy. It's got a terrific cast, glamorous locations, witty jokes, and a story with a lot of heart. And on top of all that, it may actually succeed in proving to Hollywood that both Asian-centered stories and romantic comedies deserve much more attention.

Crazy Rich Asians is a full-steam-ahead romantic comedy with a setting Hollywood has often ignored

Crazy Rich Asians' plot is a slimmed-down version of Kevin Kwan's 2013 novel of the same name (which birthed a trilogy - hello, future film sequels), though it still crams a lot into its two-hour runtime. As adapted by Peter Chiarelli ( The Proposal) and TV writer Adele Lim, the screenplay draws on some of the most beloved tropes of the romantic comedy. It's got hints of Cinderella, which has provided a partial template for many a rom-com ( Pretty Woman, Ever After, The Prince and Me, even the pretty terrible but much-watched Netflix movie A Christmas Prince).

There are hints of the lineage of Jane Austen here too - especially stories like Pride and Prejudice and Emma, which explore class in the midst of a swoony, clever romance. And those pieces share DNA with movies like Pretty in Pink, in which the spunky, self-assured heroine finds her own way in the world, and finds love in the process.

The result is a thoroughly recognizable romantic comedy, with many of the same tropes that rom-coms have used for decades. And yet it feels fresh too, because the story at its center is foreign territory for Hollywood both literally and figuratively. Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a Chinese-American NYU economics professor, decides to spend spring break with her boyfriend Nick Young (Henry Golding), who's going home to Singapore to be the best man in his friend's wedding.

What Rachel doesn't know is that Nick comes from a fabulously wealthy family, a thing she starts to realize when they're ushered to their private suite on the airplane. But it soon becomes clear that his family and the social circle in which they move are far, far wealthier than anything she could have imagined.

Rachel was raised by a single mother who emigrated from mainland China to New York City, a far cry from the gilded, glitzy world Nick that brings her into. The Young family, which immigrated to Singapore from China centuries earlier, are "old money" rich, and basically own all the real estate on the island, as Rachel's college roommate Peik Lin (Awkwafina) tells her. Their friends and relatives are all fabulously rich as well.

They're also very close-knit. Nick has a couple of cousins with whom he's friendly - uptight, image-obsessed business executive Eddie (Ronny Chieng) and movie director Alistair (Remy Hii) - but he's closest to Astrid (Gemma Chan), who is richer than any of them by dint of parentage, and yet married Michael (Pierre Png), a self-described "commoner." And though Nick is close to his mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), he grew up living with his grandmother (Lisa Lu) at her estate, for which the only word is "palatial."

Nick and Rachel haven't discussed marriage, but everyone's pretty sure that Rachel's presence in Singapore for the wedding means a proposal is on the way. And that, of course, doesn't sit right with everyone.

It's a great setup for a joyous, eye-popping, dramatic spectacle - centered on a lavish wedding, no less - and Crazy Rich Asians probably could have left it at that and still been a huge success. As a number of critics have written, just seeing an all-Asian cast in complex roles is a game changer; the film challenges racial expectations and brings underrepresented voices before a huge audience.

But even setting aside its strides for onscreen representation, Crazy Rich Asians also succeeds as both a celebration and subtle subversion of the romantic comedy. It does what great romantic comedies do - makes you laugh, smile, cheer for the heroine, and root for love - but it also challenges some conventional expectations about Hollywood romantic comedies, and not just in its casting.

Crazy Rich Asians' heroine is refreshingly self-assured

In Rachel, Crazy Rich Asians boasts a heroine who is not in any way portrayed as a hot mess. She has her personal and professional life together just fine. She has a healthy relationship with her handsome boyfriend, who loves her (even if he needs some schooling on conflict avoidance). She loves her mother and is loved by her in return. She is able to form warm relationships with other women, in particular the reliably delightful Peik Lin.

Rachel is wowed by Nick's world, but she doesn't succumb to its more outrageous charms. She never trips over her skirt or accidentally insults someone; the only social gaffe she commits while in Singapore is misidentifying one old woman as another. She is confident, competent, kind, respectful, and invested in her own family. And though Nick's friends and family are certain she's a gold digger, their relationship is genuine - Rachel was never after his money in the first place.

I cannot remember the last time I saw a rom-com in which this type of heroine even existed - maybe Pretty in Pink. Most rom-com heroines have to be a mess in one way or another. Her flaws might be obvious to everybody; Bridget Jones's Diary is the clearest example, with a story that hinges on its heroine trying to get her act together. Or they think they have the world by the tail, but in fact they're secretly a wreck, as in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days or 10 Things I Hate About You. It's part of the genre.

You've Got Mail's Kathleen Kelly is a business owner, but her business is going under, and her relationship with her boyfriend is as well. It's at least clear to us that Sally loves Harry. Julianne Potter comes awfully close to wrecking her best friend's wedding because she's been so out of touch with her feelings. Even , the most recent entry into the genre, features a millennial heroine who works so much that her personal life is entirely nonexistent.

So it's refreshing to watch a movie that can get along fine with a heroine who doesn't need saving. She just wants to continue loving Nick, who loves her back. Crazy Rich Asians is a groundbreaker for lots of reasons, but having a woman at its center who grows and becomes stronger without compromising her own moral center in the midst of unimaginable glamour is one of them.

And if the Hollywood rom-com is indeed making its glorious return with this film, I hope we'll soon be treated to a lot more of the same.

Crazy Rich Asians opened in theaters on August 15.

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Crazy Rich Asians is a dazzling, sumptuous success

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News and reviews of 2019's biggest summer blockbuster films. I'm not sure any Hollywood romantic comedy has hit the big screen bearing more expectations than Crazy Rich Asians . It's the first contemporary English-language Hollywood movie with an almost all-Asian cast in a quarter-century (the last was 1993's The Joy Luck Club).

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The movie Crazy Rich Asians represents the world's 1%. This movie only shows white people in the begging at the hotel. The white men are seen as racist as they tell the Young family since they are asian to go to Chinatown.

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Crazy Rich Asians is no racial triumph. It's a soulless salute to the 1%

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With its plummy accents, couture gowns and clumsy merging of cultures, this 'tale of empowerment' is just Sex and the City in Singapore

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This movie portrays Asian Americans well but not Singaporeans. In my films Hollywood portrays Singapore as a rich skyscraper country but doesn't ever actually show majority of the country and their culture. This movie does not represent Singaporeans.

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First-person essays and interviews with unique perspectives on complicated issues.

Jon M. Chu is on a mission: "We can sugarcoat it all we want, but the moment you bring up an Asian-led movie, there's one example to point to, and that'll be us," he told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview. "To be on the biggest stage with the biggest stakes, that's what we asked for." He's talking, of course, about Crazy Rich Asians, the film adaptation of Singaporean author Kevin Kwan's best-selling novel released this week in US theaters.

When Scarlett Johansson adorns Ghost In The Shell posters and Emma Stone plays an Asian character in Aloha, the release of a major all-Asian film feels like an antidote to the whitewashing that Hollywood is notorious for. Constance Wu - who has been brave and unflinching in speaking out about race and representation in the industry  - plays the female lead in Crazy Rich Asians.

The film won't open until August 22 in Singapore, but Singaporeans are watching the hype unfold online, one glowing review after another. The film has an impressive 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Chu has described the film as "more than just a movie, it's a movement."

But while it's definitely significant that Hollywood is finally producing an all-Asian film, the anticipation for this film demonstrates that representation can mean different things to different groups of people, and that there is a divergence between the needs and priorities of Asian Americans and Asians in Asia. As a Singaporean of Chinese descent, I feel that the film's depiction of my home is startlingly flawed.

How Singapore is typically depicted in Western films

The film follows Chinese-American economics professor Rachel Chu, who travels with her boyfriend Nicholas Young back to his home in Singapore to attend his best friend's wedding. There, she discovers that Nick comes from an obscenely rich family, and is plunged into a world of ridiculous extravagance and lavish parties.

Major Western productions tend to see Asia in very particular ways. We could be the "rising Asia," all glittering skyscrapers and futuristic urban design, or the rustic, impoverished-yet-inspiring backdrop for slumdog millionaires. We are dumplings and kung fu, curry and tech support, wise gurus who talk in riddles for all your "eat, pray, love" needs. We are obscenely wealthy people throwing lavish parties.

But this is not what we are. A continent as massive as Asia can never be as simple as the stereotypes imposed on us. Asians - a population of more than 4.4 billion people - are not a monolith, and our need for representation and empathy can't be addressed by nonwhite casting.

The all-East Asian cast of Crazy Rich Asians is also a misrepresentation of Singapore at the most basic level, obscuring Malay, Indian, Eurasian, and more populations who make the country the culturally rich and unique place that it is.

Singapore is a tiny Southeast Asian country that many might have heard of but not many know about. We don't exist in the minds of people living overseas as a fully fledged, complex society, but as a caricature.

As a freelance journalist covering Singapore for foreign publications, I've heard the same stories over and over again, solidified into tropes that supposedly define us: wealth, anal levels of micromanagement ("you guys ban chewing gum, right?"), the caning of American teenagers. There are people who think we're in China, and many don't realize we speak English as our first language.

In recent Western productions, Singapore has been the shiny city backdrop for action sequences like in Hitman: Agent 47, or the bizarre smoky, steamy pirate hangout on stilts like in Pirates of the Caribbean. A British television show digitally altered scenes actually shot in Singapore to make it look, according to them, "more like Singapore" - by which they meant doing things like changing the street signs from English to Chinese. None of this contributes to deeper understanding or appreciation of our lived experiences in Singapore; it only exoticizes.

Chinese Singaporeans enjoy many privileges based on their race

As a Chinese Singaporean, I grew up enjoying the privileges of the dominant racial group. As of 2016, 76.1 percent of Singapore's citizens claim Chinese ancestry; at no point in my life here have I felt under- or unrepresented because of my race.

While Singapore has its fair share of colonial hang-ups - white people in Singapore enjoy a significant amount of privilege - Chinese Singaporeans can be confident that their interests will not only be served but usually be dominant in national affairs.

In fact, the matter of whether Singapore is "ready" for a non-Chinese prime minister is apparently still up for debate, quite like in the United States back in 2008, pre-Obama.

When it comes to representation, what I would like to see as a Singaporean is something that reflects my country and society in all our diversity and complexity, and helps audiences make connections between our experiences and theirs.

Crazy Rich Asians does nothing to improve the situation. It's touted as a win for representation in the US because of its all-Asian cast, but the focus is specifically on characters and faces of East Asian descent, which plays into issues of racism and colorism that still exist, not only in the US but in Asia. Ironically, in Singapore, Chu's all-Asian boast is nothing more than a perpetuation of the existing Chinese dominance in mainstream media and pop culture.

The story of Crazy Rich Asians - and the racialization of "crazy rich" behavior, as if batshit levels of extravagance don't happen elsewhere - also does little to combat the othering of Singapore and Asia.

Reading the book was a strange experience; while I knew it was about my home, there was very little in it that I found recognizable, which is why I have little hope that the film will help anyone see Singapore as anything more than "kooky Asia," stuffed with materialistic, flamboyant billionaires with bedazzled lifestyles.

Promoting Singapore's decadent wealth papers over its problems

Kwan, the author, and Chu, the filmmaker, are free to write and make whatever they like. It would be unrealistic  and undesirable  to expect Singaporean writers to write only one way, because Singapore can mean so many things to so many people.

But touting Crazy Rich Asians as some sort of progressive win is false, especially in a context when there are already so few nuanced representations of Singapore and Asia in Western media. And when someone as lovely and woke as Constance Wu is saying that this narrative of the absurdly rich and privileged in a highly capitalist city-state is "a very important story to tell," we see a divergence in the priorities of Asian-American people of color and Asians in Asia.

Singaporean motivations when demanding representation stem from the same place: a desire to be portrayed in all our complex, nuanced, contradictory glory; to recognize ourselves onscreen, and for others to recognize us as the fully formed people and community that we are. This is important because it affects the way people perceive us and, by extension, the way in which they connect or stand in solidarity with our struggles and challenges.

As it is, people outside Singapore have little knowledge of the curbing of civil and political rights, or of issues like inequality and poverty, which means Singaporeans working on such issues have difficulties finding solidarity, while foreign governments are happy to prioritize trade deals over human rights. Promoting an image of Singapore as a megarich hub of excess papers over the urgent struggles that people face on the ground.

Crazy Rich Asians doesn't meet this need, no matter how nice it might be to see Asian faces in a Hollywood film.
This essay is adapted from an Kirsten Han is a Singaporean freelance journalist and editor-in-chief of New Naratif, a platform for Southeast Asian journalism, research, art, and community building. She also curates We, the Citizens, a weekly email newsletter covering Singaporean politics, social justice, and civil society. article on the Establishment.
First Person is Vox's home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

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Crazy Rich Asians is a win for Asian Americans. But it gets Singapore wrong.

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First-person essays and interviews with unique perspectives on complicated issues. Jon M. Chu is on a mission: "We can sugarcoat it all we want, but the moment you bring up an Asian-led movie, there's one example to point to, and that'll be us," he told the Hollywood Reporter in an interview.

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Crazy rich Asians portrays the stereotype that all rich people are not bad.It also is the first film that has main characters being Asian. This movie portrays Asians but not all.

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Crazy Rich Asians review - Cinderella does Singapore in a riotous romance | Peter Bradshaw's film of the week

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In Jon M Chu's spectacular comedy, a Chinese-American academic discovers her boyfriend belongs to a fabulously wealthy dynasty

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How to Watch “Crazy Rich Asians” Like an Asian-American

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How to Watch “Crazy Rich Asians” Like an Asian-American

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Watching as a Asian American you are not all represented. The wealth takes place from Singapore not America. This movie also focuses on the one percent of Singapore.

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"Please, God, let me like this movie," I said as I walked into a screening of a film I'd been awaiting more eagerly than any other in years. "Crazy Rich Asians," directed by Jon M. Chu, is the first movie from a major Hollywood studio to feature an entirely Asian cast in a contemporary story since Hollywood Pictures released "The Joy Luck Club," twenty-five years ago. That movie, based on the novel by Amy Tan, came out a year after I had arrived in the United States from China, as a child, and it became the reference point for anyone who learned of my growing literary ambitions. "Maybe one day you can write a book like 'The Joy Luck Club,' " I was told by well-meaning adults, both Chinese and American, who often added that they hadn't read the book but had enjoyed the movie immensely. Movies, more than the written word, were how you reached a mass audience, and in the history of American cinema there have been woefully few faces like mine on the big screen.

I forgot about my little entreaty to God about three minutes after the opening credits of "Crazy Rich Asians" and became engrossed in following the film's riotous, surreal, impious world, which felt something like a cross between a roller-coaster ride and a safari. The movie's aim (a largely successful one) is to take its viewers through narrative loops, arcs, and spirals rising to formidable heights in order to reveal a particular species of the überwealthy, roaming with spectacular abandon in its native habitat, far from the prying eyes of lesser mortals. That species may be rare, but over the past decade its numbers have grown robustly, its members flitting freely among the world's most cosmopolitan cities-from Singapore to Shanghai to New York-and living with the irreverent glee that comes from the recognition that, in a global society increasingly covetous of material wealth, they are evolutionary winners.

Amid this astonishing opulence, the movie, based on a 2013 novel of the same name by the Singaporean-American author Kevin Kwan, is built along the lines of a conventional rom-com, with added hints of both "Cinderella" and "Pride and Prejudice." At the center of the story is a wedding-in this case, a forty-million-dollar extravaganza in Singapore, at which the beloved scion of one of Singapore's wealthiest families, Nick Young (Henry Golding), is to be his best friend's best man. Like most upper-class Asians, Nick was educated in the West; unlike many of his class, he prefers to keep a low profile. Since grad school, he has lived frugally as a history professor at New York University. A little implausibly in the age of the Google, his wealth has been a secret to his girlfriend of a year, Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a middle-class, American-born Chinese woman who teaches economics at N.Y.U., whom Nick invites to go with him to Singapore. She has never been to Asia, and the trip presents an opportunity for Nick to introduce her to his highly status-conscious, old-money family. But word of his pending arrival, plus one, throws not only his family but all of Singaporean society into a disoriented, self-interested tizzy. Trouble, intrigue, and hilarity ensue.

Kwan's novel, which is loosely based on his own childhood in Singapore, had already printed a million copies when Warner Bros. acquired it for production. I read it a couple of years ago, when I wrote a piece for The New Yorker about the phenomenon of wealthy young Chinese living in Vancouver. (I followed a group that appeared in a reality-TV show called "Ultra Rich Asian Girls.") Chu, the film's director, was born in California, and his depiction of the Asian-American experience resonates the way that messages scribbled on bathroom stalls occasionally do, articulating uncomfortable truths that are generally too politically incorrect to discuss in the open. At the beginning of the novel, before Rachel starts dating Nick, her friend teasingly accuses her of being a "self-loathing Asian," since she doesn't go out with Asian men. "The real reason you treat Asian men the way you do is because they represent the type of man your family wishes you would bring home," the friend says. "Either that, or growing up as a racial minority in America, you feel that the ultimate act of assimilation is to marry into the dominant race. Which is why you only ever date WASP s."

In the novel, Rachel vigorously denies the accusation. But, as a fellow Chinese-American woman about Rachel's age living in New York City, I wondered about the extent to which my own impulse to fit in, and that of other Asian-Americans I knew, was a function of what we saw in popular culture. When I was growing up, in the nineteen-nineties and the early aughts, the lack of Asian appearances on television and in the movies seemed like the surest sign, despite what liberal-minded friends and teachers told me, that Asians were too different to ever be representatively American.

To see Asians onscreen, you mostly had to turn to DVDs of dramas produced in Asia, and those tended toward a distinct cultural aesthetic that felt increasingly alien to me as years passed. In my teens and twenties, whenever I watched the few available movies about Asian-Americans-mostly indie productions-I felt refreshed but suddenly and awkwardly exposed, as you do when, after a shower in a hotel bathroom, you catch a glimpse of your bare body in a mirror that you had forgotten was there. Watching mainstream TV and movies, I rooted for the Asian actor if there was one, but at the moment, in spite of myself, I couldn't help feeling aspirationally white. How could I not when the characters given the most complexity, screen time, and humanity were the Caucasian leads?

That's why, for me, the true star of "Crazy Rich Asians" is its inversion of racial expectation. The movie opens on a rain-drenched Asian family, laden with suitcases, attempting to check into a posh London hotel only to be dismissed by a pasty-faced manager who suggests that the family try Chinatown for accommodations. By the end of the scene, it becomes apparent that the family-Nick's family-are the hotel's new owners. In another scene, at an unspeakably over-the-top bachelor party for Nick's best friend, beauty queens from the Miss World competition (uniformly Caucasian, sporting bikinis and ceremonial sashes) are flown in. Their appearance is fleeting, as is that of all the white people in the movie-they are tokens in the way minorities have traditionally been in American movies. What's more, "Crazy Rich Asians" has fun deliberately upending the trope of Asians as hardscrabble immigrants (which the "Joy Luck Club" protagonists were). In one scene, a Singaporean patriarch encourages his children to eat up all their dinner by saying, "Think of all the starving children in America!" Similarly, when Rachel arrives in Singapore's famously luxe Changi airport, she whispers, "Changi has a butterfly garden. All J.F.K. has is salmonella and despair." One gets the sense that the Western centers of cultural gravity-London, Los Angeles, and New York-have effectively finished their reign.

When I was a child, Asians, both those living in Asia and those tucked away in ethnic enclaves in the diaspora, turned to shows such as "Dynasty" and "Dallas" to spy on the inner world of American blue bloods. The reversal, in "Crazy Rich Asians," in which the audience is made to feel like an interloper vying for a glimpse of Asia's glittering class, is what makes the movie, as many critics have deemed it, a landmark. At the screening, I imagined what it would have been like to watch the film as a twelve-year-old or an eighteen-year-old, and wondered whether, in the novel, Rachel would have felt compelled to date only Wasps if she had had the opportunity to see movies like it.

In the days leading up to the film's release, Chu told the Hollywood Reporter that "we can sugarcoat it all we want, but the moment you bring up an Asian-led movie, there's one example to point to, and that'll be us. To be on the biggest stage with the biggest stakes, that's what we asked for." For many Asian-Americans, both cinephiles and those, like me, who haven't been inside a movie theatre in a couple years, the mere existence of "Crazy Rich Asians" has been cause for celebration. But some have also expressed anxiety. "Is this supposed to be our Black Panther moment for stereotype-shattering Asian-American representation in mainstream media?" a millennial from San Francisco asked on Medium. "What if no one watches it? Does it prove once and for all that Asian-Americans are not bankable stars?"

The question is not an idle one. Every stage of the process of attempting to make a "barrier-breaking movie" required a painstaking exploration of identity, of both Asian-Americans and of the ever-changing continent from which their parents or their grandparents emigrated. Chu, to insure that he was doing justice to the biggest stage with the biggest stakes, supplemented casting calls in New York and L.A. with a five-continent search and an online open call. "We just didn't want to miss anybody," he told . "I wanted this to be the 'Avengers' of Asian actors."

But a two-hour movie, no matter how action-packed, can't be all things to all people, or even to all Asians. As soon as the trailer came out, some lamented the absence of South and Southeast Asians. One Twitter user noted, "All the representation talk on the red carpet, yet brown people used as servants, drivers." Others decried the movie's failure to depict the life of the vast majority of Singaporeans and Malays, who live workaday lives, and complained of its eagerness to caricature and exoticize Asians to entertain mainstream American audiences.

I had a concern of my own: What does it mean that "Crazy Rich Asians" must accommodate simultaneous, conflicting demands-to tell a coherent narrative, to represent Asians of all stripes, to showcase Asian culture without alienating the dominant culture, to sell something palatable to the average American-when other movies, starring white leads, are asked only to tell a single story convincingly? Asian-Americans, a largely made-up group that is united, more than anything else, by a historical marginalization, are desperate for a movie like this one to be perfect, because the opportunity to make another might not arrive for another quarter of a century. In this sense, we can't help but become emblematic of another stereotype: the overbearing Asian parent, demanding the best of our creation, endowing it with our greatest hopes and, like any good tiger mom, our fiercest criticisms.

After all, if we don't ace every test and hit every mark, how will we ever prove our worth? If we don't achieve the impossible, how will we realize our crazy dream of being truly American?

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How to Watch "Crazy Rich Asians" Like an Asian-American

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"Please, God, let me like this movie," I said as I walked into a screening of a film I'd been awaiting more eagerly than any other in years. "Crazy Rich Asians," directed by Jon M.

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One Way That Crazy Rich Asians Is a Step Backward

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One Way That Crazy Rich Asians Is a Step Backward

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This movie is one step backwards because through some of the language in the movie where one of the characters said "ching chong" then says just kidding which pretty much states they are not that kind of Asian. In another scene he tells his child to eat his chicken nuggets because there is a lot of starving children in America which goes back to that they are not those types of Asians that work in the factories. In the opening scene of the woman checking into the hotel you would expect her to check into Chinatown but since she is checking into a "white" hotel she is the right kind of Asian.

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That pressure may have lessened after high audience turnout and celebrity theater buyouts helped the movie successfully rake in $34 million in its first five days. And while the film's defenders have admonished critics for expecting one work to fill the cultural void left by decades of Hollywood exclusion, it's noteworthy that this is the sort of story that industry advocates and audiences have coalesced around-one that eases collective anxieties about Asian and Asian American difference by adopting the universal aesthetic of the ultra-rich.

Though it has been trumpeted as a landmark victory in the fight for Asian American visibility in Hollywood, Crazy Rich Asians enacts a remarkable disavowal of certain forms of Asian representation. In one notable scene, Goh Wye Mun (Ken Jeong) plays up an affected Chinese accent, repeating Rachel's surname until it devolves into a parody of the "ching-chong" stereotypes of Hollywood's past. Then, the payoff: "Just kidding," Wye Mun says in an assuredly American accent: "I went to Cal State Fullerton." The scene stands in for the prevailing spirit of the film: We're not those kinds of Asians. Gone are the "Oriental" accents and broken English, replaced with the sophisticated air of Golding's British tongue, Wye Mun's familiar all-American vernacular, and Goh Peik Lin's (Nora Lum a.k.a. Awkwafina) contrived " blaccent."

Later in the same scene, Wye Mun scolds his young daughters to finish their chicken nuggets: "There's a lot of children starving in America." The barb-which turns a classic white American parent's chiding on its head-drew raucous laughter from the mostly Asian audience at the screening I attended. But the punch line also rejects the "wrong" kind of Asians. Look, the joke seems to say, we're not the third-world farmers or factory workers you might have imagined. We're just as good as you. Or, more accurately: We're better-and richer.

Despite the film's all-Asian cast, and Kwan's refusal to accept industry suggestions to cast Rachel as a white woman, Wye Mun's jab suggests that white, Western expectations still cast a long shadow over the movie. Take the opening scene, whose drama hinges on Eleanor Young (Michelle Yeoh) triumphantly distinguishing herself-in the eyes of a white hotel manager-from the kind of Chinese who might stay in London's Chinatown. While viewers are compelled to cheer these moments as subversive, such scenes stage a certain kind of respectability politics for a presumed white audience (or, these moments assure Asian American viewers that they are, in fact, the "right" kind of Asians).

But it's unfair to single out Crazy Rich Asians for its apparent concern with white standards of respectability. The arguable crowning of media representation as the defining Asian American issue points to some deep concerns about how we are perceived. While many speak of the legitimate importance of seeing people who look like themselves on-screen, the investment in mainstream depictions in particular-often to the marginalization of a thriving Asian American indie-film circuit -implies a preoccupation with not only (or even primarily) how Asian Americans see ourselves, but also how others see us.

Like the wider fight for diverse representation, Crazy Rich Asians struggles with the conflicting pursuit of a universalism that " transcends race" and a specificity that reflects Asian and Asian American lived experiences. More often than not, it errs toward the former. While the film's many Chinese-Singaporean cultural details are heartwarming and refreshing-wrapping dumplings at the family table, a climactic conversation over mahjong-at times they feel oddly tacked on, almost ornamental to an otherwise westernized story. In fact, the director Jon M. Chu has been forthright about his desire for the film to transpose Asian faces onto a quintessentially Hollywood-which is to say, white American-story. In an interview with IndieWire, Chu said he wanted the movie to convey "this idea that old, classic, Hollywood movies could have starred Asians with just as much style, just as much pizzazz." It's no surprise, then, that the film drips with an art-deco aesthetic, nodding to American cinema's black-and-white days with one party scene-which rivals Gatsby's finest-where women in flapper fashion swing and twirl to a Singaporean jazz band.

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One Way That 'Crazy Rich Asians' Is a Step Backward

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That pressure may have lessened after high audience turnout and celebrity theater buyouts helped the movie successfully rake in $34 million in its first five days.

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For the mans bachelor party it is all hidden by cargo containers and all the women that are there are Miss America Caucasian women not Asian. When his mom picked the women to marry his current girlfriend was considered too American all though she was Asian. This film specifically focused on American Asians and not a diversity.

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Thoroughly assimilated and confident Chinese-American woman Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) has fallen in love with supremely suave but slightly enigmatic Singaporean man Nick Young (Henry Golding). Nick's big secret: his family back home belongs to the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent. The broad joke behind the setup: their healthy Greenwich Village romance scandalizes his hoity-toity kith and kin. On her first trip to Singapore (and Asia, for that matter), Rachel, a brilliant economics professor at NYU, gets treated worse than Julia Roberts did in Pretty Woman . Nobody ever put a dead fish in the L.A. streetwalker's bed.

In the novel, the first time Rachel hears Nick's name, she asks, "A Brit?" Casting Golding in the role has roused controversy, because this first-time actor is a British-Malaysian model and TV host. But he's effortlessly persuasive as a Singaporean golden boy.

Crazy Rich Asians requires our willing suspension of disbelief for other reasons-such as its premise. Yet it comes on cool and amusing enough for us to buy that Nick could shield Rachel from the truth about his wealth for many months. Rachel protests that he couldn't be loaded, or, as he puts it, "comfortable"-after all, he uses her Netflix password. It's a nifty gag, especially if you know that Netflix made a major bid for Kevin Kwan's novel and two sequels. (Kwan also serves as executive producer.)

A binge-able series might have been a better way to go, since the script squeezes a sprawling supporting cast into boisterous caricatures and transforms an intricate flow chart of status among Singapore's superrich into a flood of affectations. I'm not a fan of the book. But I prefer Kwan's sly, patient catalogue of outré, vulgar, and exquisite customs to the film's rim-shot burlesques or its awestruck interludes of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous , Singapore Edition.

The director, Jon M. Chu ( , Step Up 3D, G.I. Joe: Retaliation ) smartly retains the novel's period introduction. In 1995, the racist manager of an august London hotel disrespects Nick's mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), ignores her confirmed reservation, and recommends that she and her group seek a suite in Chinatown. Quietly, and quickly, she outflanks him and re-enters in triumph. For Asian billionaires, living large is the best revenge.

With that idea safely noted, the rest of the film simply revels in the instant power at the Singapore nabobs' fingertips. In the cleverest sequence, Nick and Rachel share dessert at a New York café while he begs her to attend his closest friend's Singapore wedding. A svelte observer recognizes Nick, snaps a picture, and relays the news across the globe via her Asian in-crowd (or, as Nick puts it, "RadioOneAsian"). The frame fractures into an ultra-hyperactive version of the split-screen telephone scenes from Bye Bye Birdie and Pillow Talk . Magnified text messages, search results, and profile pictures fill every inch of the wide 2.39:1 aspect ratio. By the time Rachel agrees to go, Eleanor calls Nick from Singapore to verify the breaking news.

I wish Chu had conceived the entire film this playfully, the way Norman Jewison did Thomas Crown , another film that lets us glimpse the affluent life. To pull it off, Chu and his screenwriters, Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim, might have had to stylize the straight-arrow love story that made the 2013 book a best-selling "beach read." The way it is, the film's most daring humor comes from dropping its lovebirds into hedonistic gilded cages.

Can we retire the use of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" for helicopter music? It has worn out its welcome as a smart-alecky way to reference Apocalypse Now , and here it blares out while choppers fly the groomsmen to a bachelor party staged on a cargo ship. Hidden by walls of containers, the men cavort with bikini-clad Miss World contestants-all Caucasian. Meanwhile, the bachelorettes carry on as if they're cramming a Bravo Housewives getaway weekend into 24 hours. They jet to a Sumatran resort complete with spa treatments, free shopping sprees, and multiple opportunities to play Mean Girls at poor Rachel's expense. The comedy (and in Rachel's case, the drama, too) feels forced and sour. Happily, there's some genuine gaiety in the big-hearted, nouveau riche household of Rachel's college pal, Peik Lin Goh (Awkwafina). The Gohs' home glitters with gold and its reflections, but their low-comic exuberance is infectious. They've patterned their décor on Versailles' Hall of Mirrors and Donald Trump's bathroom. Elsewhere, the excess starts at "wretched" and never quite makes it to funny.

The director often seems as glamour-obsessed as his characters. (The anti-climactic wedding scene, staged with physical effects like water coating the aisle to mirror shimmering lights, amounts to high-gloss kitsch, down to best man Nick and Rachel mouthing a heartfelt "I love you.") Once they board the plane from New York to Singapore, all we can do is look agog at the features of Rachel and Nick's first-class sleeping cabin and the upscale wonders to come. Nick's pal Colin (Chris Pang) and his fiancée Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno) graciously pick up the couple at the airport and join them in scarfing down the viands of Singapore's renowned street hawkers. Rachel couldn't, then, be more stunned when Nick's mom starts cold and grows antagonistic, or when Araminta's friends accuse her of being a gold-digger, or when Mandy (Jing Lusi), Nick's malicious ex, informs her that was Eleanor's pick for her son's bride. They rationalize that Rachel is too déclassé and too American. Raised by a single working mother, Rachel doesn't know her own back story, and she believes in following her professional passion-which the Singaporeans think precludes her from devotion to "family."

We're geared for Rachel to summon her you-go-girl spirit and take on Nick's mother and wily old grandmother (Lisa Lu). For all their pompous, snooty talk, they appear to be expelling her reflexively. The film takes too long to clarify why Rachel should care about these self-important people or try to preserve Nick's links to them. Her responses to their luxury are passive, ambiguous, or dazzled. But Wu rises to this complex acting challenge. She uses her own emotional transparency to reveal Rachel's confusion, then insight. She communicates, way before the script does, that Rachel wants to win Nick without severing him from his insular family and its opulence, because they are part of what makes him who he is. Without much writing help until her final showdown with Yeoh's Eleanor, Wu demonstrates how intensely Rachel gropes toward understanding this forbidding elite. All the while she steels herself to fight it for her man.

At least one actor every episode punctures the Old School "class" or the new-style glitz with skeptical intelligence or anarchic energy. When Rachel and Peik Lin first ooh and aah over the Youngs' palatial estate, I thought they must be reacting to its size, because there isn't anything glorious about the Asian-colonial style. On the outside it's a house of seven or eight gables, with each gable topping its own wing. Inside, it resembles a museum containing objects they can touch, including an enormous stuffed tiger. Luckily, even here, Awkwafina's Peik Lin imbues her screen time with live-wire attitude. Awkwafina turns Peik Lin grabbing selfies on the Youngs' grand staircase into an uproarious little dance. The jagged, springy rhythms in her voice and her walk animate the conventional material. Her father (Ken Jeong) says her blonde pixie hairdo makes her look like "Asian Ellen," but her farcical instincts are more ferocious than DeGeneres's. She finds an apt buddy in Oliver (Nico Santos), the gay wit of the Youngs' extended clan. He stays in Eleanor's good favor as a problem-solver, whether by finding just the right ceremonial gong or by neutralizing a troublesome guest. Santos boasts an apt Wildean flair: he articulates outrageous perceptions with his sparkling conversation. He describes himself as the Youngs' "poor relation rainbow sheep."

Golding, an impressive first-time actor, and Wu, the star of ABC's Fresh Off the Boat , do make a charming couple. Golding has physical grace, candid expressions, and an engaging gentleness. From certain angles he resembles that debonair master James Mason. Wu, always genuine and sympathetic, can also be immensely touching: she instinctively hugs Eleanor at their first meeting. Neither Golding nor Wu suggests hidden mysteries or fire-one reason it's hard to believe that Golding's Nick could keep his nuclear family life a secret for over a year.

In different ways, Yeoh and Gemma Chan (as Nick's closest cousin, Astrid), transcend familiar domestic melodrama because of their power to surprise. Few can top Yeoh for still waters running deep. We don't want to believe that someone of her gravity would be so bigoted toward "ABCs" (American-born Chinese) and so cruel to Rachel, who immigrated with her mother when she was six months old. Yeoh subtly expresses the underlying tensions beneath Eleanor's blanket statements of principle-a triumph of understatement in a hyperbolic movie. As Astrid, considered the perfect woman in her set, Chan doesn't over-rely on elegance. Her luminous beauty vibrates with thought and feeling. She conveys the importance Astrid places on remaining composed: for her it's an aesthetic choice, not just learned behavior. She won't violate her personal style by screaming at her husband over his infidelity.

Media coverage of the film has focused on how significant it is for all audiences, especially Asian-Americans, to see an all-Asian ensemble in a big-studio release. (The precedents include 1993's The Joy Luck Club, 2004's Memoirs of a Geisha , 2006's Letters from Iwo Jima , and my favorite in this list, Justin Lin's sizzling 2002 teen-rebel movie, Better Luck Tomorrow .) Several actors here do get a chance to prove their talents in a film that immerses us in a rarefied, exotic milieu.

What gives the movie its erratic vitality, though, is its of Asian and European mores and culture, jet-set flash, and American Pop, which evokes the particular ambiance of Singapore's high-society subculture. The score emphasizes eclectic, cosmopolitan vibes. The Elvis hit "Can't Help Falling In Love" (itself loosely based on a classical French ) becomes Colin and Araminta's wedding song. Berry Gordy's "Money (That's What I Want)" emerges as the movie's theme song. The strictly instrumental music ripples with American swing and Big Band flourishes.

In Kwan's novel, Rachel decides that Nick is her true love when he knows the words to the Talking Heads' "This Must Be the Place (Naïve Melody)." The Talking Heads' sweetest lyrics celebrate, "You're standing here beside me / I love the passing of time/Never for money, always for love." Too bad this number didn't make it into Chu's Crazy Rich Asians. It would have infused this literal, glittery film with some downtown lyricism and irony.

Michael Sragow is a contributing editor to Film Comment and writes its Deep Focus column. He is a member of the National Society of Film Critics and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and a contributor to the Criterion Collection.

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Deep Focus: Crazy Rich Asians - Film Comment

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Thoroughly assimilated and confident Chinese-American woman Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) has fallen in love with supremely suave but slightly enigmatic Singaporean man Nick Young (Henry Golding). Nick's big secret: his family back home belongs to the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent.

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‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Doesn’t Represent All Asians Everywhere, and That’s Fine (Column)

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‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Doesn’t Represent All Asians Everywhere, and That’s Fine (Column)

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This movie does not represent all Asians and does not come even close to it. Rachel was considered a banana compared to the others because shes yellow on the outside but white on the inside. Films in 2017 out of 100 grossing movies 65 of those had no Asian or Asian american female character.

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Despite the critical acclaim, the have decried "for not being box office success, and the fabulous jade carpet roll out, some critics Crazy Rich Asians" all things to all Asians .

There have been complaints that the film doesn't represent the true diversity of Southeast Asia or Asia or the Asian-American experience. And they are absolutely right; it doesn't. In fact, it doesn't even come close.

The richness and complexities of the Asian diaspora cannot be tackled and addressed in a rom-com that takes place in a country that's two-thirds the size of New York City.

But nevertheless, about a third of the way through " Crazy Rich Asians," I found myself tearing up - and I'm not part of Singapore's 1%. It was an emotional experience, not just because of how funny Ken Jeong and Awkwafina are every time either is on-screen. Or because I could hear Michelle Yeoh's subtle Malaysian accent juxtaposed with Constance Wu's distinctly American one punctuated by Henry Golding's polished British intonations. Instead, it was the singular portrayal of a very real issue many Asian-Americans encounter. I was overwhelmed at the sight of an Asian-American-centric story on the big screen for the first time in a generation.

Based on the book by Kevin Kwan, "Crazy Rich Asians"centers on Chinese-American Rachel Chu (Wu), her boyfriend, Nick Young (Golding), and the shenanigans that follow when Nick takes his beloved to his home country of Singapore for his best friend's lavish wedding. Rachel soon discovers that her humble professor bae is a member of one of the wealthiest families in Southeast Asia.

Hilarity, of course, ensues, as do the typical rom-com tropes: the pursed-lip matriarch (Yeoh), the sassy best friend (Awkwafina), the over-the-top cousin (Nico Santos), classism (everybody) and a hodge-podge of flamboyant characters who seem to only swirl around in the upper crustiest of the upper crust, no matter the culture. In this case, it's Peranakan, or the descendants of Chinese immigrants who moved to and settled in Southeast Asia centuries ago and grew their fortunes. There are shirtless guys and petty, pretty ladies in frothy couture and blinding bling. It's silly and fun and OMG, will Rachel keep her guy despite his overbearing mom!?

You can probably guess the answer just by watching the trailer.

And yet it's that sweet rom-com banality, against a booming big band mandopop soundtrack, that makes it so revolutionary. As director Jon M. Chu has , "It's not a movie. It's a movement."

Simply put, we just haven't seen this many Asians with those many accents (Malaysian, American, Singaporean, British, Australian) being that many things ever before - sexy, funny and outrageous - and not doing martial arts. Or escaping war. Or being generally tragic.

But the broadness of "Crazy" doesn't take away from the very specific experiences of being Asian-American and coming to terms with what that means when you are, quite literally, not in Kansas anymore - or in Rachel's case, New York.

It's an experience many Asian-Americans, like myself, know well. Like Rachel in the film, I've been accused of being a "banana" - yellow on the outside, white on the inside - a pejorative assigned to Asian-Americans who have lost touch with their roots.

On the surface, perhaps this jabisn't entirely unwarranted: I can't read much Mandarin, despite attending Saturday morning Chinese school throughout my childhood. I don't speak Hokkien, the dialect that my father's family speaks in Malaysia, his home country, and incidentally where much of "Crazy" was shot. In the spirit of a uniquely American mandate of pursuing individual happiness - before pragmatism or what might appease a community or a family - I decided to follow my dreams of going into journalism.

And the giant maraschino cherry on top of this banana split is that I'm engaged to a Jewish-American guy from Arizona, who recently underwent his own Rachel Chu-esque hazing when he met extended family in Southeast Asia this summer.

This singular aspect of the Asian-American experience - the one of straddling two cultures, always afraid that you will slip and fall into the crevasse in-between - is portrayed with stinging effect in the film. There is a moment between Rachel and Nick's mother, Eleanor, where Eleanor says that no matter what, in the world of Singapore high society, Rachel will always be a foreigner.

It's poignant and heartbreaking, feelings that my fellow Asian-Americans might recognize as we are consistently asked to prove our authenticity as Asian or American, depending on where we are in the world and with whom. There's something powerful about seeing that discomfort on screen, of reminding people that being considered foreign is a status that changes with latitudes and time zones.

Because seeing your existence not just represented, but also acknowledged and understood is deeply moving when you're only used to seeing shoddy, cheap facsimiles. Invisibility doesn't have a stinging effect as much as a numbing one; you get used to just not being there.

As an on-air host, I have felt that perhaps in an even more visceral way and have engaged that numbness to shield myself from when my ethnicity, coded as "my look," has been used an excuse to not consider me for a position. One instance stands out in particular, an executive who wrote to my former rep that he didn't feel the need to meet with me because "he already had someone Asian, thanks." Numbness, then, acts as a buffer. It lets you budget your frustration, your disappointment, your anger.

So, to see the existential crises I have personally undergone as Asian-American, to feel the internal struggle of both belonging and not, told through authentic voices at a pitch that anybody can hear but rings particularly true and clear to me - it's the opposite of numbing. It's catharsis.

"Crazy Rich Asians" puts these varied experiences - of being Asian in Asia, of being Asian in America or Australia or in the U.K. - front and center as if to say, "Look. We're not all the same." Because the persisting assumption that we are mitigates our unique perspectives of the world and lived experiences moving through dominant cultures where we are seldom represented.

And a lack of representation has only contributed to the systematic racism that's kept minority storytellers and performers from flourishing. When the excuse for not casting an Asian-American actor is because there's not one bankable enough when Asian-Americans are hardly cast period, it becomes a self-perpetuating cycle that only keeps it from happening. According to a released by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, underrepresented groups have hardly seen any increased representation on the big screen in the past ten years; of the top 100 grossing films of 2017, 65 had no Asian or Asian-American female character .

To paraphrase one actor I recently heard comment on this issue, when Hollywood says there isn't an Asian actor big enough, it's like a farmer saying that he doesn't have any crops - Hollywood, you didn't even plant the seeds.

"Crazy Rich Asians" has shown that Asian-American-centered stories can bring in domestic crowds. And because of that, the hope is that it opens the door for more Asian stories - from across class and regional divides - to finally get the attention they deserve from Hollywood.

The film's stars are already well on their way: Wu stars in the ABC sitcom "Fresh Off the Boat," now headed into its fifth season. Golding will co-star in the Paul Feig-directed "A Simple Favor," alongside Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick, out later this year.

The seeds may have finally been planted. I can't wait to see how they blossom.
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'Crazy Rich Asians' Doesn't Represent All Asians Everywhere, and That's Fine (Column)

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Despite the critical acclaim, the have decried "for not being box office success, and the fabulous jade carpet roll out, some critics Crazy Rich Asians" all things to all Asians . There have been complaints that the film doesn't represent the true diversity of Southeast Asia or Asia or the Asian-American experience.