Crazy Rich Chinese Singaporeans

So, Crazy Rich Asians has unexpectedly turned up on Netflix and I have finally caught up with it.

I quite enjoyed it, finding it particularly fun recognising nearly all of the locations due to the recent trip to Singapore.   (Well, it is a small place, my wife observed.)   Sure, it seems almost like a co-production of a government tourist board, but everywhere in the film - interiors and exteriors - looks gorgeous.  I was wondering, though,  how they managed to get some filming done in outdoor locations before the actors started breaking out in sweat - it gives no sense of the crushing humidity.

The story is serviceable (if somewhat improbable) in a rom-com way, and the two leads are likeable.  In fact, it would have to be one of few successful rom-coms of the last 15 to 20 years:  everyone agrees that Hollywood has pretty much forgotten how to make them without throwing in a bit of raunch and not especially charming male leads.  On that last point, as quite a few noted when the movie came out, CRA is especially interested in rehabilitating the screen image of Asian men as not just sidekicks but handsome leads.  (It's too obvious about it, but I suppose there are decades of gratuitous shower scenes of female actors to balance up against.)

Anyway, Channel News Asia last Christmas had a lot of "year in review" talk about the success of the movie, and gave the impression that it went over very well there.   But Googling the topic, I see that some didn't care for the near invisibility of other races in the movie, given the melting pot that is the city state.   Vox ran a particularly serious complaint about how it "gets Singapore wrong", but it seems the "it's only a movie" crowd won the day, and fair enough I say.   

Two last points:  really, who thought the dress that the female lead (Rachel) wore to the wedding was a good look on her?  I mean, there is even a mean joke in the movie about her breast size, so why wear a dress that seemed to emphasise that?

Secondly, I see a line that I didn't get has an explanation in a review:

You also know that it is in fact Singapore on the screen when you hear “ku ku jiao” — the crude Singlish phrase for penis — being chanted repeatedly.

Presumably, I'm not the only one who didn't know that.

Update:  I just decided to check how much money it made.  It took $238,500,000 internationally, which seems not as much as I expected, given the publicity it got; but then again, I don't know what rom coms of the last decade have made.   Still, with a budget of $30 million, it was definitely a money maker.