Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan is a 2013 bestseller about Rachel, a woman who falls in love with a man named Nick, who turns out to be from an insanely rich family. However, it’s not all fairytale endings as Rachel meets Nick’s family, all of whom think she is below Nick and will be his ruin.
Basically, it’s everything great about Asian drama show in book form, but if you asked me, I would never have thought it would ever make it to the screen in the U.S. And this trailer cements the reason that I am not a betting woman:
It’s kind of refreshing to see a movie with an all-Asian cast being chatty and witty. Constance Wu, famous for her role on Fresh Off the Boat, plays Rachel, Nick is played by Malay actor Henry Golding, and Michelle Yeoh plays the matriarch Eleanor. The cast is a who’s-who of East Asian actors, including Awkwafina, Gemma Chan, Ken Jeong, Harry Shun Jr., Sonoya Mizuno, Nico Santos, and more.
The film is directed by Jon M. Chu, who is unfortunately known for Jem and the Holograms movie and Now You See Me 2. That might just be the most troubling part of this ensemble, but the screenplay is written by Peter Chiarelli (The Proposal) with revisions by Adele Lim (Lethal Weapon, Life Sentence), so that’s a good sign. Overall though, the trailer delivers on the book’s premise – a fish out of water story that highlights the opulence and inner works of the ultra wealthy in one of world’s richest countries.
Crazy Rich Asians premieres in theaters August 17, 2018.
