‘Oh my God, will this work? We don’t know. It’s all Asian,’ the US-based Asian film investment group Ivanhoe Pictures stated in 2014. Asian films have been seen as art films in the US. Crazy Rich Asians (2018) is an all-Asian-American cast Hollywood blockbuster since Flower Drum Song (1961). It features not all an Asian cast, but it is an all-Asian-American cast. This point should not be ignored like most of the criticisms against this film. This film is an attempt to defuse Caucasian racial dominance of Hollywood movie characters, an advantage in its major theatrical release throughout Warner Brothers' distribution lines world-wide.
From class society's political view point, Crazy Rich Asians (2018) has no blue-collar workers as its main characters. All of them are not middle class, they belong to the highest ruling class which is constituted by billionaires of industrial giants. Hollywood films ordinarily feature middle class characters, but Crazy Rich Asians (2018) is fully described by high-class billionaires. Its most important feature is well mentioned by its film title. The story is that Asian American Rachel Chu moves to Singapore to marry her billionaire boyfriend Nick Young after they solve strong objections from Nick's domineering mother, Eleanor Sung-Young. The ending is predictable. And an important aspect of this blockbuster is that it takes Singapore as the stage for this film despite its obvious Chinese domination of the cast. The most thriving city in Asia, where the most millionaires and billionaires live in Hong Kong in 2018. Thus, it should geographically be staged in Hong Kong instead of Singapore. Avoidance of Mainland China and any other Chinese cities is a kind of political decision of Hollywood executives. The aim is to avoid giving political and psychological advantages to China. Dir. Jon M. Chu could have filmed this in China if he had tended to fully contribute to China. On the contrary, he did not, and made great compromises with the political reality of the American film industry. It still keeps the nationality of being Asian Americans, not pure Chinese. As a result, Crazy Rich Asians (2018) is not a full Asian cast Hollywood blockbuster, but it rather a full Asian-American Hollywood blockbuster. And it's obviously dominated by Chinese characters rather than various Asian races. Racial diversity is still an issue in the democratic formation of Hollywood filmmaking.
Any part of this report may be disseminated without permission, provided attribution to the professional film writer Ryota Nakanishi as author and a link to www.ryotanakanishi.com is provided.
This film article is for educational purpose only.
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.
Commentaires