Crazy Rich Asians

School of Movies

[School of Movies 2019]

One of our favourite films of 2018 arrives in style for this vibrant celebration of an exotic culture. This is the biggest Asian-American cast since Joy Luck Club in 1993, and tells a very different story, about a regular young American woman finding out on an innocuous family trip that her boyfriend Nick is crazy rich.

Now this could have been disastrous viewing for us. Both Sharon and I are automatically suspicious of wealth, if you're a billionaire there's a lot of things you could be doing with your insane level of fortune that could be helping the world, so a movie about obnoxious rich people, either with the viewpoint of "Aren't these people idiotic parasites?" or "Don't you envy their lifestyle?" would have made us puke.

However, director Jon M. Chu (again whose filmography seems designed to repel us, with four Step Up movies, Jem and the Holograms, G.I. Joe Retaliation and Justin Bieber: Never Say Never under his belt) takes a book that might have done exactly the above and along with the help of a fresh and masterful crew and cast re-crafts it into something extraordinary, and down-to-Earth, yet fresh and global-contemporary. It is at its core a very relatable tale of being an outsider and immense family pressure.

And as a special treat we were able to snag one of the supporting cast members, Calvin Wong who plays Peik Lin's adorkable brother PT (the chap with the phone and the heart-hands). And Calvin was absolutely brilliant to have on, lending us perspective on filming, on Singaporean and Malaysian culture and quite a bit of insight into the finished story.

Guests:

Calvin Wong: Follow him on Twitter at @ithayla

Jesse Ferguson of Recorded Tomorrow @TheDapperDM

And we are @SchooloofMovies