The best and the worst thing about this movie is its title. At its best, it is catchy and generates curiosity in viewers. But after watching it, we realize that it is just a regular "Cinderella" theme movie with everything "Western" replaced by "Chinese". To be honest, the title of the film should have been "Crazy Rich Chinese" since there is nothing else "Asian" in this movie.
It is important to know that the movie is based on a novel of the same title, published in year 2013.
The plot is very simple, a regular girl and a super-rich boy fall in love and once the boy takes her to meet his family, she is subjected to humiliation and manipulation. By the end, she gives up and returns, but then, in a twist, the boy's family allows him to pursue her; and hence the movie ends in a typical "boy gets the girl" fashion. It is easy to see that the unequal marriage's survival is still questionable in the long term, but the film industry wants to keep viewers in a "fairy tale" world where stories end after a boy and girl marry, and now they do not even write "and they lived happily ever after" since we all know how convenient it sounds.
The movie heavily relies on the acting and charisma of actor Henry Golding. Henry was born to a British father and Malaysian mother. The actress Constance Wu gets the most limelight in the movie though and does her job well but there is nothing extraordinary in her performance. There are several side characters in their small side stories, but everything in this movie looks like "stolen" from other movies made on Cinderella type marriage theme.
As a final verdict, watching this movie is like watching a medley of two dozen other movies on similar theme. If one loves China, then it is a definitely a must-watch; because in the end, its glorification is the only takeaway from this movie.
- Rahul
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