Podres de Ricos

There are three complaints:

1. Celebrates perversity - romance and materialism are too intimately tied together (i.e. gold-digging) that both end up being expounded in their superficiality and unreality

2. Limited representation - only "Chinese" Asians and only extremely wealthy individuals are portrayed, undermining the efficacy and diversity of true "asianhood"

3. Shallow plot and characters - overused story-line about romance and familial tensions, a pure imitation of Western desires with a lack of oriental authenticity, leading to a paper-thin plot protracted by stereotypes

Three responses:

1. If you actually consider how the movie plays out, the elements that supposedly celebrate exuberance and materialistic romance are either dismissed in their possible retention of worth or confined to brief stylistic moments which throw the more intractable experience of love without materialism into stark relief. There is so much evidence of this throughout the film - every point of excess ingrains in us, as an audience, a sense of disgust or doubt - is that not then the point? Plus the title literally spells the theme out for you "Crazy Rich", so yeah. What did you expect?

2. Now the second part of the title"Asians". I agree, the film does not cover every individual that would be qualified under the term in an ethnic or otherwise geographic sense. But why did it have to? It is not a documentary. It does not aim for absolute objective authority, it tells a story with insight into a limited persona with limited struggles and limited breadth. The assertion that the movie is inaccurate or "bad" because it does not show us every type of Asian is extremely unfair - at least they showed us some (where most do not show any) and they did it in a way where the central aspects of being Asian are still on display (e.g. filial guilt, patriarchy).

3. This then leads me to my next point. What is the big picture? Sure we could convert this movie to have an all white cast and the general story-line and characters would not have to be completely revised, I concede that. But, to me the appearance of an all Asian cast in big budget Hollywood - twenty-five years after "The Joy Luck Club" - means a lot. I think even if you take the plot at its worst - dreary, old garbage - and the inclusion of Asians as mere tokenistic market-pandering, I still stand by this film. Because to me this film is a gateway to all the things that people have been so frustrated and disappointed about, it is a film that in its very existence can forge the path for much broader and deeper representation or discussion. You will not be able to overturn all Asian stereotypes or perfectly represent all Asians overnight, it is an ongoing process that begins by giving the "asian-face" more airtime. Plus I thought the way females were portrayed in this film has been misconstrued and under-evaluated. Just saying.

Watch the film and see what you think.

Why all the hate? This movie is purely escapism and it doesn't pretend to be anything deeper than that. It showcases exotic scenery and lots of shiny expensive things. There's also a "Cinderella-esque" love story that serves to move the story along sweetly.

The characters aren't super deep and they don't do any switching up halfway through the film so the plot is easy to follow. Charming boy is secretly rich with a heart of gold, and eyes for only our lead lady. Successful girl is comfortable and naive, and fights a battle of wits to be with her man.

I see a lot of people complaining about racism and the movie promoting bad values. Yeah, the movie primarily showcases East Asians as opposed to every single Asian people, but why the pressure??? Finally, a movie that features Asians whose entire character identities aren't math experts or Kung fu masters (which is the stereotypes mainly presented in American television), but people with varied goals and backstories that can be understood to a certain extent by their audience regardless of race. As for the bad values about gold digging and backstabbing. Literally every rom-com has a gold digger or backstabber thrown in the mix for a little razzle dazzled added drama.

All these "far stretched" complaints are clearly based in some people's discomfort with a movie presenting any race other than white but still being celebrated on a large scale level. This is a standard modern fairytale type romance. It's not meant to be complicated. It's just fun. Don't overthink it, just enjoy.

I have to say, I was very impressed with this film. I was very much looking forward to it, despite not reading the source material, and it turned out even better than I thought it would! There was so much to appreciate about this film! It was filmed in such a beautiful way, and the locations look great, too! The cast was excellent, and really made you believe their characters. I liked how you could understand their actions, and why they acted the way they did. This is certainly one of the year's best, in every way you can imagine! Just a fantastic film!

I'm confused by the criticism of this movie by other users - this wasn't made for people who want to be rich & glamorous, it literally showed how shallow & void the overly-rich & indulgent were. You were supposed to feel disgusted by them at many points in the film. But it was less about the flashy cars & parties, & more about the relationship between a girl & her boyfriend's family, as well as the identity crises that arise for an immigrant in America.

Sounds like the bad reviews are people who feel their Asian race was not represented in the movie, people who think just because a movie is set in a certain country in this case Singapore means everyone from that country is swimming in wealth, materialistic and shallow. Then Americans must love blowing up planes, buildings, cities based on the Die Hard movies I used to watch. Also Westerners who just can't stomach the fact that hey Asian people too can have it all and yes they don't all live in mud huts and speak bad English. If you just watch the movie and forget about the skin colour of the actors, who cares what country it was filmed in and accept it is all fantasy and Hollywood entertainment. Nobody is asking you to be crazy, materialistic and rich just like Die Hard is not asking you to take on terrorist groups and jump off burning planes. It's a romantic comedy with a poke at Chinese culture and the generation gap. People just read too much into it and you know it made an impact as haters bothered to hate.