Review: ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Is a Party With a First-Rate Guest List

How is the box office record for this widely publicized film? I am just curious. I made a short documentary film about the new China in 1970s but lost a lot of money. I never tried it again. All films wanted to make money. What was the production budget for this crazy movie?

Awkwafina!

" It is an unabashed celebration of luxury and money, with hints of class conflict that have more to do with aspiration than envy or anger, set in an Asia miraculously free of history or politics. " Appalling. I can't imagine a project more deliberately blind to the true politics of our time. Let's promote Asian (-American?) identity by celebrating the triumphs and travails of a bunch of Singaporean Trumps. (It's perfect that this is a family of real-estate moguls.) Elsewhere today in the NYT we read about rich Asian-Americans spending thousands for tickets to special screenings of this movie (with the obligatory row of seats set aside for "underprivileged" kids). It's as if the promoters of this movie are screaming at us: identity politics has nothing to do with social justice! Don't worry! The world will remain safe for oligarchs! Plutocracy will survive diversity!

As a 2nd generation Asian American, and in this Trump era, where overt bias has become threatening, physical, this movie pushes a stereotype that does not represent the 99% of Asians in the US. Fresh off the Boat show is the same - one that I do not watch and encourage my family not to watch - the Tiger mom and the greedy hapless dad, the grandmother who I can't tell speaks English or not. We don't need to perpetuate these stereotypes in the media and encourage racists. What about a movie involving the 99%, and life portrayed like the rest of Americans. Show Asians dealing with the same issues as the rest, show them laboring, working, at school. There must be storylines that would be of interest, instead of a mom who is offended by a hotel manager and then buys the place out from under him. Shame on the stereotype. Me, I just criticize the hotel on TripAdvisor and Yelp, like the 99%.

I am an ABC nearing 60, who was born and raised in (at the time) all-white and often bigoted Orange County. I have been called “Jap”, been teased for having thick lips and stick straight hair, and am never mistaken for the native Californian that I am. I have been waiting my whole life to see Asians depicted on the big screen as elegant, insipid, hilarious and flawed — basically, no different than anyone else. See the movie. It is a fun romp which you will enjoy. Meanwhile, your support will advance the possibility of more stories about Asians — of which there are many, being told to an American audience largely unaware of, but I think open to, those stories.

Just for the sake of accuracy - there was a movie with Asian(-American) themes and a mostly "Asian" cast - "The Namesake" - in 2007. I get it that most people think of "Asian" as a look or racial identity, rather than a geographic appellation. But India (+Pakistan+Bangladesh+Nepal+Sri Lanka + Bhutan, etc) are South Asia, and the "Middle East" is made up some West Asian countries, namely Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cyprus, and the Arabian peninsula countries, Israel, Palestinian territories, etc... Not to ruin anyone's pleasure of poor/middle-class girl falls in love with unassuming but stunningly rich guy, meets his parents, especially the cruel and harsh mother who can make her life hell, plus the rivals, basically women being hostile and cruel to other women, the heroine wallowing in her inadequacies and insecurities, struggling and suffering, while the men just hang around and party. You know, life. Hope the movie is fun and the audiences enjoy it. But easy on the hype folks. These things very easily veer into tokenism. A better takeaway is to point out there is so much talent in the world and so many stories almost identical to those we assume to be uniquely ours. Since it is customary to drag Mr. Trump into every conversation, it would be a useful effort to ask his "base" to watch this movie with a gentle reminder, you can build all the walls you want, but there is your competition out there, grow up and get smart, the world is not full of rubes anymore.

This is just a fun and entertaining universal story about relationships, family and expectations. The fact that the film is written, directed, portrayed by a cast that aren't typically represented in Hollywood is great. It makes for a richer and diverse world for all. It's not about representing every Asian or every view. Not sure why there is so much negativity here when there's so many positives to enjoy in this story. Aloha!

It’s interesting that A.O. says the material could fill up a TV series or two, because it has: I’ve watched 3 Taiwan made rom coms with the plot of son who will take over wealthy family business meets plucky, independent girl who the family thinks isn’t right for the wife of a head of such an enterprise. If I branched out to Korea I’d see a dozen. They are on Netflix. All this stuff is new to a huge Hollywood production, but not otherwise.

Being of Southeast Asian origin (and now an American citizen), I'm not quite sure what is meant by an all-Asian cast. I respect the effort (though the subject matter is not to my taste, compared to say Joy Luck Club), but it is sometimes forgotten that Asia consists of many ethnicities and East Asian is just one among them.

Surveying all the hype around this Hollywood trifle, you'd never guess that Hong Kong, mainland China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan all have mature film industries in which -- believe it or not -- the actors are Asians. So are the directors, writers, cinematographers and writers. Who would have guessed?

I’d be a little more impressed if the lead character - who’s supposedly shattering stereotypes about the portrayal of Asian male attractiveness in western mass media - -had a more typical East Asian (or rather in this case, Chinese) face than what this this otherwise talented Eurasian actor “brings to the table.” Choices like this do make a subtle statement.

This may well be a fun movie to watch, but the hype about the all-Asian cast is somewhat irritating (and I am ethnically Chinese). Is this all we can aim for anymore? An all-black superhero movie, an all-Asian rom com? What’s next, Crazy Rich Jews? It may be harmless entertainment, but I don’t see how this can be called progress.

Hmm....as a fourth generation Asian-American, I don't know what to think about this movie really; as it is well... so foreign. We are not under-represented in the media, we are invisible. And when we do make the big screen, it is a caricature; a kung-foo master, a Suzy Wong or Japanese gardener, all with heavy accents of course. So I can't help but wonder, will this be any different? Well, one obvious improvement is that Asians are playing Asians rather than Caucasians with something uncomfortable shoved up under their eyelids like in the days of Charlie Chan or more recent "yellow-face" portrayals in film. The title doesn't offend me as much as "Fresh Off the Boat," the title for a TV series I've seen advertised that I will never watch because the title is so insulting; so yeah, I guess I would go see this film with fingers crossed!

Obscene and overt wealth is cheap thrills though it fuels the Asian obsession. I'd take Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman over this.

I'd much prefer to watch a film about anything other than the 1 percent. Everyday Asian person stories in English language format is my preference.

I went to a screening of Crazy Rich Asians the other night and thought Oh well, a screening gets me out the house and I see many old friends. As the movie opened you could feel the anticipation of the audience, there was a buzz. After about 15 minutes I thought the tempo and fun just can't last but it did. So entertaining especially in the times we live in. I've been to Singapore a few times and love it there, the locations are used to show off a side that is rich and opulent, hey, it's a movie meant to entertain and it does with all it's over the top affluence. Go see it if you can get over the snobbism of the elite, so much fun and a total surprise.

Looks fun. Haven’t read the books but I’ll go see the movie.

As an Asian American I find the title of this film is offensive and not funny. Am I overreacted? I don't think so because I have been a resident of the US since the end of WWII. I also enjoying watch many American movies since my childhood. My first American movie was the original King Kong in 1935 and followed by Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times. Later I was crazy about all Shirley Temple's films. Talked about all Asians cast films and I still feel the Joy Luck Club of 1993 was the best all Asian actors film in my memory. Another almost all Asian actors film was the 1963 Flower Drum Song in which the most beautiful Nancy Kwan played the leading role in the Roger and Hammerstein award winning musical. This film was selected by the Library of Congress in 2008 as one of the valuable films to be preserved and registered in the Library because of its culturally, historically, and aesthetically significance. Not many Asians are rich in this country. I am Asian but I am very happy with my low retirement pension. I wonder this film will be allowed to be shown in China. There are a lot rich Chinese in China at the present time and I wonder weather they would be like to be labeled as Crazy Rich Chinese? Or Crazy Poor Africans? I also enjoyed watched the World of Suzie Wong. A film with a Chinese actress produced in 1960 in which the beautiful Nancy Kwan also played the leading role and the late William Holden also gave a great performance. Good luck to Crazy Rich Asians.

This is the sort of favorable A.O. Scott review that could just as easily be read as an unfavorable one if he simply altered the sequence of his comments to emphasize the negative stuff instead of the positive stuff. In other words, it's the kind of bland "consumer reports"-style critique that this reviewer has turned into a specialty, most particularly with regard to movies that certain audiences are going to rush out to see regardless of what the critics think. A couple of weeks ago, a new film by Bill Plympton- one of American cinema's foremost animators- had a theatrical engagement here in NYC that neither Mr. Scott nor any of the Times' other critics ever got around to covering. The movie I saw turned out not to have been one of Plympton's finer efforts but, even so, it should have merited at least as much notice by the Times' staff as has been granted to the kind of pablum that Mr. Scott is describing here.

Do people really want to watch the 1% with their “problems”, regardless of race?

Jon Chu actually made a good movie? and it's a good rom-com too? I might go see this. Can't wait for James Wan's Aquaman next year!

Saw the film last week and absolutely loved it. I went with admittedly low expectations - a combination of not really being into romcoms and feeling over saturated with discussions of identity politics - and found this film to be a blast. The fact that it is an all Asian cast is definitely a reason to see the movie, but it is not the only reason to see it. The cast and filmmakers know how to have a good time and you’ll be glad you went. In the vein of “When Harry Met Sally” or “Jerry Maguire”, it’s a romcom for sure, but is fun enough to be accessible to a broader audience and is bigger than the genre it belongs to. While discussions of race and culture do crop up in the film, it really isn’t the ostensible focus. You mostly just enjoy the characters and the outlandish scenarios they find themselves in. The larger issues that are given airtime in the film largely center on intracultural matters: do native born Chinese citizens accept foreign born Chinese-Americans as being ‘authentically’ Chinese? There are generational-family subjects that come up as well. These matters are all handled well and with some grace, but never weigh the movie. Mercifully, this is not a film that is here to serve up the typical intersectionality flowchart-of-logic where they browbeat you with matters of “power structures” or “privilege”. So go see this film! Laugh and have a good time. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another 25 years to see a film like this come out of Hollywood.

While it's admirable to see a movie with so much diversity, the storyline seems follow some Asian American stereotypes - obsessed with status, wealth and deference to authority. I would say Harold & Kumar did a far better job debunking some Asian stereotypes - though perhaps not quite as diverse of a cast.

LOL to the PG-13 rating for obscene wealth. I haven't been to the movies since my daughter was born 2.5 years ago, but this might be the reason to go. Representation matters!

I adored Kevin Kwan's trilogy and can't wait to see these characters and places brought to life on the big screen.