More than just a film, Crazy Rich Asians is a movement

WARNER Bros is set to release Crazy Rich Asians, based on Kevin Kwan’s best-selling novel, on Aug 22. It’s a significant event, the first Hollywood release in a quarter-century to be centred on the Asian-American experience with a cast of Asian-American actors.

Even at a time when underrepresented voices are smashing these kinds of statistics left and right, that one is particularly staggering. For director Jon M. Chu, the film isn’t a film at all. It’s a movement.

“It’s nuts. It’s crazy to think in 2018 that we’re still here, but, here we are. So we’ve got to change things,” Chu says. “Who knows the reasons? I’ve been around for 10 years so I’m part of the problem. I realised that if anything was going to change, we had to do it on the ground. I was getting older and I realised, ‘What else am I contributing to cinema? What am I actually bringing new to this world?’”

In numerous pre-release screenings dating back to the spring, the film has ignited passion in a demographic that has clearly been hungry for representation in the cinema.

The excitement at these screenings is palpable, reminiscent of the energy that surrounded Marvel’s blockbuster film Black Panther earlier this year. There must come a moment when the suits of the industry wake up to the fact that serving the underserved is simply good business.

“That’s what we’re trying to prove,” Chu says. “Black Panther proved there is a huge business for this. And cinema depends on this, new perspectives. You can only tell the same story from the same perspective so many times.

“Movies were always meant to be a place to see stories you couldn’t experience in any other way, to sit in a dark room and say, ‘Tell us a story.’

“With the access to people editing, to filmmakers, writers who are telling their stories in their own ways, to be able to bring that to cinema and refresh cinema is vital for this business. I think studios are waking up to that idea.” – Reuters