Tag Archives: Hollywood

Movie Review: Crazy Rich Asians

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Last week during the September school holidays, finally GG and I caught Crazy Rich Asians. I had read the book a few years back when it first released and was actually looking forward to the movie when it was announced.

The film was super hyped here in Singapore and probably rightly so since the movie is set in this city-state and would bring tremendous world attention, especially the tourism dollars here.

The movie, to me especially, didn’t live up to the book. But then, that’s me and there’s rarely any movie which lives up to the movie in my head, so I’ll let that ride. The film is an unabashed and cinematic depiction of Singapore and the Singapore Tourism Board should be happy with the outcome of the dollars they have spent on this movie. The movie is a celebration of Singapore and even though I am sure not all scenes shown as Singapore has actually been shot here, it was fun to see familiar landmarks on the big screen and try to decipher where a particular scene could have been shot.

Crazy Rich Asians follows Rachel Chu (Constance Wu), a Chinese American economics professor at NYU who’s been dating fellow professor Nick Young (Henry Golding) for over a year. For their spring break, Nick invites Rachel to visit his home of Singapore, where he’s returning for his best friend Colin’s (Chris Pang) wedding. Rachel decides to join him, meaning it will be the first time she’s met his family, including his mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh). Plus, it gives Rachel the chance to visit her college best friend, Peik Lin (Awkwafina), who also lives in Singapore. However, when Rachel and Nick are upgraded to first class on their flight, she quickly realizes her long-term boyfriend hasn’t been completely upfront about his family – particularly how wealthy they are – and it takes her by surprise.

Once they arrive in Singapore, Rachel is quickly accepted by Colin’s fiancée Araminta (Sonoya Mizuno), and she’s invited to the bachelorette party, while Colin and Nick must suffer through a bachelor party thrown by their former classmate Bernard Tai (Jimmy O. Yang). However, Rachel’s approached by Nick’s ex-girlfriend Amanda (Jing Lusi) and feels less than welcome. Things only get worse when Nick introduces Rachel to Eleanor, who decidedly doesn’t think Rachel is good enough for her son. With the help of Peik Lin – and some allies in Nick’s family, Nick’s cousin Astrid (Gemma Chan) and second cousin Oliver (Nico Santos) – Rachel must decide if she wants to fight for Nick, or escape from the extravagant world of Singapore’s rich and famous in favour of her relatively quiet life in New York City.

The film is fun, light and frothy and I loved Rachel’s character. She is a smart, well read and an independent woman who is not afraid to call out Nick when he is wrong. Another strong woman on the show was Astrid played by Gemma Chan. I loved her in the book and though her character was not as well fleshed out as I would have liked it, I am looking forward to her story in more detail when the sequel comes out.

Someone watching this movie may think Singapore is filled with Chinese millionaires and billionaires as almost everyone in the film is Chinese and a millionaire. You would be hard pressed to find other races in the film (Singapore is a multi-cultural and multi-racial society), not even in scenes which show them socialising (except for the one where Rachel befriends the Malay princess Intan).

All in all, this is a fun film and for those who don’t know Singapore, this is a good starting point. Singapore is shot very well and I am sure the STB will use parts of the film as marketing campaigns moving forward.

My verdict: Do go and see the film, you won’t regret it!

 

 

Movie Review: Beauty and the Beast

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On Sunday, GG and I caught the live-action remake of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. This film is rated PG in Singapore which meant she could not see it with her friends. But honestly, I really didn’t the big deal about it being PG as the theatre was filled with young children and their parents, many much younger than GG!

 

Emma Watson was aptly cast as the bookish, but brave Belle while the actor who played the Beast, Dan Stevens only showed his true self at the very end, was scary initially as the beast and one who got our sympathy as the movie moved along. Luke Evan’s Gaston was also spot on as the slightly slimy and pretentious character he was.

The film is pretty true to the animated version and those who’ve seen it will follow the movie. I loved the songs and GG hummed along with the soundtrack. The film is longer than the typical Hollywood movie with a running time of 129 minutes. It also gives a bit of the backstory about why the Beast behaved the way he did in the beginning (when he gets cursed) as well as a bit of Belle’s background, especially about her dead mother. These scenes, which are experienced by Belle with the Beast show us and Belle his soft side and are probably instrumental in getting her to fall in love with him.

As to the other cast, my favourite of the household help was Lumiere, Beast’s butler who turned into a candlestick voiced and enacted by Ewan McGregor. The interplay between him and the majordomo turned clock Cogsworth played by Ian McKellen was lovely to watch as was the romance between Lumiere and Plumette, the housemaid played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw who had been turned into a feather duster. I also loved how Mrs Potts (Emma Thompson) and Chip (Nathan Mack) were interpreted, and would have loved to have more scenes between the two. Another interesting character was Gaston’s sidekick LeFou who was played quite flamboyantly by Josh Gad. He was an out and out closet case, corrupt and utterly devoted to Gaston, but who in the finale changes sides and moves to the side of the good.

I also liked that throughout the film, there was a lot of racial diversity, but I’d image that in the 16th century France where the film is set, especially in the small village of Villeneuve where Belle lives and the nearby castle of the Beast, you would not expect to see this kind of racial diversity.

On to the elephant in the room, the overtly gay scene which everyone was talking about. Because of this scene and perhaps one more somewhere in the middle of the film, Malaysia has postponed the release of this film indefinitely. Both the scenes were, according to me, not worth the hype it generated. Agreed that this is a children’s film, but the violence where the Beast fends off the wolves and also when the villagers come to kill the beast and ransack the castle would probably be more frightening to children than these scenes. These were literally blink and miss scenes and I seriously doubt any child in the theatre (and there were plenty the day we saw the film) would have even realised what was happening in that fraction of a second.

So there you have it, a film which is surely worth the ticket price (plus the popcorn you will inevitably buy). Please do go and see it if you haven’t yet. If you have, I’d love to hear what you thought of it.

Here are some trailers from the film for those who haven’t seen it yet.