AKenjiB
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Post by AKenjiB on Sept 10, 2018 18:12:20 GMT
Anyone see this yet? I kinda liked it. It’s pretty good for a Jon Chu film at least. Being half-Asian, the representation onscreen was nice, not that I’m going to give the film free points for that or anything. But it’s a cute little film. Nothing really special or groundbreaking in the story itself, probably could’ve been mildly trimmed for time, but it made me chuckle and I enjoyed the cast and production design.
There is a really weird part where Harry Shum Jr shows up for 30 seconds and his scene didn’t make any sense to me and I literally had to google it after the film was over to understand who he was and his significance to the scene. I guess he had a bigger part in the book.
But yeah, decent little rom com. Happy to see Constance Wu getting work. Nothing too unpredictable with the story but it’s got a couple solid dramatic beats and is mostly fun to watch. Probably not something I’m in a rush to rewatch though.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 11, 2018 2:02:27 GMT
I really enjoyed it. It is otherwise a standard rom com but the cast is delightful, and it’s also pretty funny when it wants to be. Really hope to see more of everyone in that cast again soon. Also if you like this then I suggest you check out Fresh Off The Boat because Constance Wu is fantastic on that.
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AKenjiB
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Post by AKenjiB on Sept 11, 2018 6:01:19 GMT
Also if you like this then I suggest you check out Fresh Off The Boat because Constance Wu is fantastic on that. I honestly think it’s a real shame that Constance Wu has never gotten an Emmy nod for Fresh off the Boat. It was nice that her character in Crazy Rich Asians felt really different so hopefully she won’t get typecast in the future because I think she’s really talented.
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Post by Kirk-Picard on Sept 11, 2018 12:31:03 GMT
On my watchlist
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coop032
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Post by coop032 on Sept 11, 2018 21:00:30 GMT
Months ago I really had no desire to see at all, but after hearing how good it was I decided to check it out and was very surprised. I loved it.
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Sept 13, 2018 22:35:48 GMT
FINALLY saw it. Outside of its ethnicity, there is really nothing innovative to it at all. But it just works. REALLY well. Overlong, but so thoroughly entertaining, charming, and GORGEOUS. So well cast with some great performances (Michelle Yeoh was MVP, but Awkwafina is such a scene stealer).
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Post by Ryan_MYeah on Sept 13, 2018 22:53:56 GMT
There is a really weird part where Harry Shum Jr shows up for 30 seconds and his scene didn’t make any sense to me and I literally had to google it after the film was over to understand who he was and his significance to the scene. Was he the one making flirty eyes at Astrid in the mid-credits clip? That seemed like such a random insert. And I found it really weird he got main billing for it.
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AKenjiB
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Post by AKenjiB on Sept 14, 2018 17:06:55 GMT
There is a really weird part where Harry Shum Jr shows up for 30 seconds and his scene didn’t make any sense to me and I literally had to google it after the film was over to understand who he was and his significance to the scene. Was he the one making flirty eyes at Astrid in the mid-credits clip? That seemed like such a random insert. And I found it really weird he got main billing for it. Yep! I wonder if he had filmed scenes that ended up being cut for time (since the film was already 2 hours, pretty long for a rom-com). Maybe he’ll have a bigger part in the sequel. This is what TV tropes wrote about the character in the book vs the movie: Charlie Wu, Astrid's ex-boyfriend. In the book, he has a lot of involvement in Astrid's storyline and is the one who encourages her to go back to her husband despite his unrequited feelings to her. He is absent throughout the entire movie until The Stinger where he meets Astrid.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 14, 2018 22:32:12 GMT
Michelle Yeoh’s performance really elevates it.
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Zeb31
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Post by Zeb31 on Nov 8, 2018 16:29:25 GMT
Weird, whatever cut I saw seems to have been missing 20-30 minutes in the third act. It's a solid, charming little film, it really is. It breezes by at a commendable pace and has a very good cast; Wu has charisma to spare, Awkwafina gets a lot more room here than she did in Ocean's Eight to flex her comedy chops and steal her scenes, and both Tang Kheng Hua (as Rachel's mother) and Michelle Yeoh elevate the film by bringing humanity and gravitas to their small, somewhat underwritten roles. But everything is wrapped up waaaay too quickly and way too neatly, even for romantic comedy standards, which really undoes a lot of the groundwork that the first two thirds lay down. The conflicts that this film sets up are surprisingly grounded and reasonable given how outlandish and movie-ish the premise is; Rachel and Nick have actual, serious obstacles to overcome, and the film makes sure to outline all of them clearly: how will they handle their obvious class and cultural divide? How can Rachel be expected to be integrated into a family that openly reviles everything she represents and is clearly not willing to ever get her acclimated to their customs? How can Nick possibly tie together the two halves of his life, which are firmly planted in entirely different continents and backdrops? How will he handle the resentment that will inevitably arise from being forced to choose one of them over the other? Does he abandon the family business and stay in NY with Rachel? Does she move to Singapore with him, even though this entire circus was sprung up on her at the very last minute with no warning at all? Speaking of which-- how the ever-living fuck does a seemingly rational person propose to another without even informing them of such immense familial baggage? How is it possible that she knows fuck all about this man she's been with for so long? Is he really so impossibly charming that he gets to thrust her into this much chaos and humiliation completely unprepared and walk way without ever getting so much as a slap on the wrist for his cluelessness and neglect? We know that at the end of the day they'll wind up together and love will prevail, because this is a crowdpleasing Hollywood romance and it's far from reinventing the wheel, but the challenges exist and they carry realistic weight. And for a brief second there, it truly seems like the script is gearing up to actually address these issues. The big confrontation at the Mahjong parlor (by far the strongest scene in the whole film) seemed to me like a clear set-up for what would be the third act in most other works of this genre, in which the two leads hit a wall, are forced to actually sit down and work through their problems like grown-ups, and thus labor their way towards the inevitable happy ending. But we get none of that. Instead, the writers follow that Mahjong scene by jumping straight to the heartwarming, "Ross running to the airport to propose to Rachel" finale without actually bothering to deal with anything. At all. Nothing is resolved. Nothing is addressed. They just give us a cute climax and hope we'll look the other way. Yeah, Rachel gets Eleanor's blessing, but it's hugely unsatisfying that that happens entirely off-screen. How the fuck did the filmmakers think that half a dozen scenes of Ken Jeong and his son being obnoxious was more important than a conversation between Eleanor and Nick in which he actually stands up to his mother and puts his foot down? In which she addresses the obvious parallels between Rachel and the younger version of herself? That's exactly what the whole film is building up towards, yet it never actually happens, because God forbid Nick actually does something interesting and shows the slightest bit of personality. Yeoh shines with what she's given, but she's only given the bare bones and never the meat. Because there was no time for the meat, I guess.
And even if Eleanor eventually comes around, clearly nobody else in the family does, so how the fuck do we get that happy ending? That engagement party at the end with everyone cheering Nick and Rachel on belongs in a film in which those exact same people did not just leave a dead, bloodied animal on her bed with "GO HOME YOU GOLD-DIGGING BITCH" written on the wall 60 minutes earlier. What at all has changed in the span of that hour?
And again, Rachel sacrifices her relationship with Nick the first time that he proposes so as to spare them both from his inevitable resentment, because she knows that in order to stay with her he'll have to abandon his family and his fortune. That makes sense. So why does she say yes the second time when nothing's changed after the first? Why is she willing to marry him now? Have they worked out what they're gonna do? Has he decided how he'll conciliate his family and his wife, and how/where they're gonna live? Obviously not. She says yes because this is a lazy, lazy ending and it's oh so cute that she does. What's the point of giving your characters grounded and reasonable conflicts if the send-up will be anything but? It's like the writers suddenly realized that they were already at page 110 and needed to wrap things up before they got to 120, so they just skipped 20 minutes of actual character development in the hopes that no one would notice. And apparently it worked. I honestly would've sat through another half hour of this, not only because it generally flies by in spite of its flaws, but also because that'd allow it to have a much better, more satisfying ending. And finally, much as I hate to poke logical holes in such a charming, unpretentious piece of entertainment, I get the impression that neither Jon M. Chu nor the writers seem to have a firm grasp on how we're supposed to feel about these characters' wealth or their lifestyle. They continuously establish that the only people worth our sympathy are the ones that either come from humble backgrounds (like Rachel and her mother) and the ones who come from money but generally don't flaunt/relish in it (Nick and the groom). Everyone else is portrayed in an unambiguously negative light, either as horribly robotic, cold, detached and alienating, or as trashy, disrespectful, oversexed playboys. Yet all the luxury and extravagance of the Youngs is portrayed as magnificently beautiful and refined; Chu's camera lingers over every piece of jewelry and set decoration so as to awe the audience, so how does that square with the obvious manichaeism of the writing? Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than in the subplot involving Astrid and her husband. Their relationship is essentially a mirror of Nick and Rachel's, given that all of their conflicts stem from the obvious class divide between them. The growing resentment and chilliness slowly taking their toll on both of them is essentially foreshadowing exactly what Rachel knows she and Nick will become over the following years if they stay together. Yet the moral of Rachel and Nick's story is that materialism should not and ultimately does not trump genuine feeling, because love conquers all; she's a saint who gets her fairy tale ending while the evil, bitter billionaires fail to get their way. On the other hand, after Michael's affair is exposed, the triumphant conclusion to that subplot is that... he's completely in the wrong and that Astrid's wealth and detachment played no part at all in their marriage crumbling down? That he's not a real man and it's unfair for her not to live her natural, luxurious lifestyle just to cater to his frail little ego? That climactic shot of her finding liberation by putting on her $1.2 million earrings as if extraordinary wealth is what allows for true redemption is so antithetical to everything else in the film that I really don't see what purpose these characters serve in the story. So yeah, thanks for coming to my TED talk.
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avnermoriarti
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Friends say I’ve changed. They’re right.
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Post by avnermoriarti on Nov 11, 2018 0:17:40 GMT
Don't get the fuzz, I like it a trillion times better when it was called Coming to America with Eddie Murphy in top form.
Also, I have to say that for a brief moment, well more like 60 minutes, dragges a lot and becomes something indigestible, it's like a tourists movie "look, this is how we have fun, learn about it".
But also, the ending has a killer punch that it's not fair. Cheers I guess....
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Post by alexanderblanchett on Dec 9, 2018 2:02:09 GMT
It was a cute film with a cute story and cute characters. But it really wasnt anything new storewise, except that the protagonists where not caucasian but asian. I dont really get the hype. it was mild entertainment, sometimes even a bit slow moving also there were subplots that really did not really bring the movie forward. Acting was often a bit stiff or to soap-opera-ish. I did like Constance Wu to some extends, especially in more serious scenes she really stood out. Same goes to Gemma Chan. I wasnt a big fan of Henry Golding at all s I did not buy his performance, and he was more a pretty face than just an interesting or inspiring character. Michelle Yeoh was good, no doubt. However it was on her best performance. The one that stood out most was Awkwafina who was actually the funniest performer and character. She really has a great comedic timing and her appearances in the film were among the most (and only) funny bits, that and the very promising opening. Nice romance, not always believable, rarely cliche-free. I did like the soundtrack and some of the images however. Great scenery of Singapore.
Nominations:
None
Rating: 6/10
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Post by cheesecake on Dec 9, 2018 23:20:34 GMT
I had a blast with it. Such a strong cast and Yeoh was fabulous as always.
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 15, 2019 3:00:59 GMT
Everything Zeb said applies (except that I didn't find the movie charming or funny). There is a basis for a good story in here, but it is smothered under the confused opulence, obnoxious supporting cast, and out-of-the-blue ending. But the actual stakes are... interesting. They could make for a good film.
Instead, we get a seventh-rate Ouran High School Host Club "rich people being rich is funny!" knockoff without any of the character development or non-gag related humor that makes shows like that so damn good. (This movie also would have benefited from very theatrical lesbians trying to abduct the heroine, but most stories would benefit from that tbqh.)
Despite a few nods towards actual dramatic power, this movie has nothing going for it. Also, Awkwafina is high-key WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR material, but it sounds like that's just me.
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Post by Tommen_Saperstein on Jul 15, 2019 3:32:53 GMT
Also, Awkwafina is high-key WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR material, but it sounds like that's just me. It is
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Post by Martin Stett on Jul 15, 2019 4:07:59 GMT
Also, Awkwafina is high-key WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR material, but it sounds like that's just me. It is But... why is she doing a Joan Rivers impression. While everyone cracks jokes about "Asian Ellen."
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jul 15, 2019 10:26:42 GMT
This is such a bland and boring film. If you make the cast white Americans, then this is just another crappy romantic comedy. The cast themselves, the films one unique selling point aren't even that strong overall.
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Post by Johnny_Hellzapoppin on Jul 16, 2019 8:13:07 GMT
Also, Awkwafina is high-key WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR material, but it sounds like that's just me. I'd definitely put her in the mix too.
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Zeb31
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Post by Zeb31 on Jul 16, 2019 14:53:06 GMT
Also, Awkwafina is high-key WORST PERFORMANCE OF THE YEAR material, but it sounds like that's just me. I'm gonna have to trust what I said in that post, because I legitimately don't remember a single second of this performance anymore. The whole film vanishes from memory after a couple weeks.
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