Crazy Rich Asians, based on the novel by Kevin Kwan - 6 out of 10

Crazy Rich Asians, based on the novel by Kevin Kwan
6 out of 10


On many levels, this motion picture has been a tremendous success.

Perhaps most important would be the fact that Asian actors dominate the big screen to the point where white people are only there as irrelevant, minor apparitions.
There is a caveat and a major one to this laudable aspect and that refers to the Indian personages that are absent or restricted to the role of servants...

This comedy has been popular with audiences, making serious money at the box office.
Finally, the critics gave it an average of 73 out of 100, albeit I hardly see why.

For the film is rather ridiculous, if we disregard the good intentions, the moral message that we should not obsess over money and that decency and rectitude are ultimately rewarded.

Rachel Chu is the heroine of the film and a role model in some ways.
She loves her boyfriend, Nick Young, without knowing anything about his wealth and position in his home country or Asia at large.

The young lovers travel from America, where the woman is a professor of economics, to Singapore, where a wedding takes place.
Nick Young is the best man and as soon as they arrive at the airport, there is the first indication that something is special about Young and his family.

For as they descend from the taxi, a hostess invites them to first class, the champagne, apartment that is at their disposal.
One does not need the maturity, ability to calculate that a professor of economics surely must possess to be able to understand that this equals Crazy Rich Asians.

This professor does not get it though.
Granted, the lover has some explanation and it is accepted.

Up to the point where she is told that this is one of the richest families of Singapore, Asia and the world!
Then there is the familiar soap opera problem of convincing the old family that this woman from America is the proper partner for the precious heir of the family fortune...or at least a big chunk of it.

We have all seen this before.
Multiple times.

The conservative, retrograde elements reject her.
Some are shocked to find she is not with the rich Taiwanese Chu makers of noodles, the Shanghai wealthy that make shoes and the list goes on.

The parties are flamboyant, excessive, colored, with fireworks and for the bachelor party they have a huge ship in the ocean with hundreds of strippers, bazookas and other outrageous paraphernalia.
The public has enjoyed this.

I thought it tedious, uninspiring, exaggerated, artificial, tacky, dry and instantly forgettable.

Oh, there is a positive element though:

Looking at what Crazy Rich people do, how shallow, intellectually poor they are one feels no envy for the material goods they have.
The difference between Having and Being could not be made more obvious.