Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Review of Crazy Rich Asians

Watched this on BBC iPlayer, and my finger was rarely far from my throat. A really nauseating film, affecting to satirise the lifestyle of the absurdly rich, but actually celebrating it. A sort of romance, with clever Chinese-American in a relationship with absurdly handsome Singaporean Nick, but not knowing that his family are super-rich...as are his friends, so that when he brings her to meet them all they go on shopping sprees and parties on private islands in private helicopters and specially chartered party container ships.

No sign at all that Singapore is a repressive one-party state, or that it's the third most unequal country in the world...there are only hideously rich people in the film (apart from the odd servant or street food hawker). 

Reading about the critical reception of the film, it seems like the only "controversy" about the racial casting - was the guy who played Nick the right or the wrong kind of Asian? Nothing at all about the planet-killing lifestyles that are held up for us all to aspire to. 

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