Movie Review: Crazy Rich Asians (2018)

Crazy Rich Asians is a wonderful escape into a world dripping with luxury and over-the-top personalities. The movie flaunts its unabashed Chinese-ness, with a soundtrack featuring Mandarin and Cantonese covers of highly recognizable US pop songs, as well as a pivotal scene where mahjong is key. Overall, it's an enjoyable journey that will hopefully lead to more stories like it!

Crazy Rich Asian's lead is NYU economics professor Rachel Chu (Constance Wu, or should I say, Woooo!), whose boyfriend Nick Young (HE'S MINE, HANDS OFF) invites her to Singapore for his best friend's wedding. Multiple surprises await Rachel along the way, many delightful (street food! Designer clothes!), and some downright terrifying (disapproving potential mother-in-law!).

The latter is played to icy perfection by the outstanding Michelle Yeoh, whose character Eleanor verbalizes the conflicts running throughout the film: sacrifice and tradition versus passion and independence, family versus outsiders, old money versus scrappy immigrants, and more. Although Eleanor places herself between Rachel and Nick, the movie has no true villain -- just fundamentally differing backgrounds, perspectives, and attitudes that, naturally, eventually swing in favor of our heroine, since this is after all a romantic comedy.

Apart from the strong writing, the supporting characters are fabulous. First place goes to Awkwafina, fresh off her triumphant debut in Ocean's Eight, whose portrayal of Peik Lin is so iconic that I honestly couldn't catch everything she said because the audience roared with laughter just about every time she came onscreen. A close second is Nico Santos (he's Pinoy!) who plays the resourceful cousin Oliver. On the opposite side of the spectrum is Gemma Chan, whose Astrid is tragic and kind and beautiful and tall and slim and I'm not jealous. That's just your imagination. Sonoya Mizuno is also in this movie, and I did not recognize her at all because I last saw her in Ex Machina, which you should also watch!

Apropos of nothing, the loving shots and scenes dedicated to food made me go, "This movie gets me." This movie is my husband.

Finally, the soundtrack is spectacular in that the music matches all the visual opulence. In particular, the opening song "Waiting For Your Return," "Wo Yao Ni De Ai," and "Money (That’s What I Want)" are very upbeat tracks that encapsulate the spirit of the film. And the song sung live (of course!) at the wedding is swoon-worthy. Love and money -- what a glorious fantasy!

TL;DR: MORE PLEASE!

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This post brought to you by boba tea!