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Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
13,080 posts, read 7,527,706 times
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Could be the producers and distributors want to expose the bootleg industry and the enforcement of pirated artistic and software material in China. Since China is part of the World trade organizations, China must either crack down forcefully and meaningfully. China know that every Chinese is China, where ever they are. Family is not only familial but cultural. National loyalties and allegiance are another matter which China should not even attempt to test.
It seems the only reason why it is getting so much press is because of the Asian cast though, not the story itself. If it were an all white or an all black cast, I don't think it would be doing near as well.
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
13,080 posts, read 7,527,706 times
Reputation: 9814
CRA also has a political/economic undertone that is not favorable to a Communist system. The Chinese "diasporia" has shown how they have succeeded in foreign countries.
Come to think of it, I don't think an all Asian cast would work for one of the scripts I will likely direct, as it might just come off as weird, unlike this movie where all the characters are related in families. If I do it for one of my scripts, where all the characters are the same race, it would be too coincidental.
I saw it and it was great. I wish i had written here the day I saw it ...I had so much to say at lunch afterwards.
Loved so many lines I now can't rem exactly. Poignant, funny, cruel, catty, beautiful, noble,
romantic, biting...fabulous cast.
(sister, Astrid? from 'Humans', love her !)
ME TOO! We saw it at the movie equivalent of the early bird dinner specials for old people. Wonderful lines, as you say, great acting from an all-star cast...
but it meant more to me for an entirely personal reason. In the middle of the last century when I was a young man, my employer (which built offshore oil facilities) sent me to work in the South China Sea, and flew me into Singapore as the penultimate leg on my trip over. This was 1974.
I fell in love with it from the first day. An incredibly exotic place where everyone (so it seemed) spoke English. Street food that was both exotic and delicious. Unlike today, there were some remnants of old sin (Bugis Street!).
While I took advantage of my employer's willingness to pay all or most of my plane fare anywhere in the far East for my seeks off (and saw Hong Kong, Taipei, Bangkok, and Penang), Singapore still had my heart, and there were so many things to fall in love with, things I saw in the movie. Mme. Cyrano had to shush me because of my exclamations...there's a hawker stand! (where the two couples ate the first night they arrived) References to both satay! (no longer exotic) and laksa! (which is still exotic, at least here in flyover country) There's the Merlion! They were staying in Raffles! (a lot spiffier than I remembered it). The couple got married in what I'm pretty sure is the old Anglican Cathedral, near the waterfront! Never saw it from the inside, and only saw a quick shot of the exterior. And all that driving down Orchard Road! And what we called Chinatown in 1974! (scene of the mah jongg game and 1-2 other scenes as I recall)
Granted, those were incredibly personal reasons for loving it...well, Gemma Chan as well (Astrid, from "Humans," who is totally British, BTW, and the most beautiful hominid on the planet). But it could have been shot in Ames, Iowa with Iowans, and it still would have been an enjoyable rom-com, says this elderly male who is (as a result) genetically pre-non-disposed to rom-coms. But it was, for this elderly, nostalgic guy, just wonderful. And Mme. Cyrano has, graciously, agreed to sit through the annotated version when it becomes available for home viewing.
If anyone wants a touch more Singapore in their media, I recommend "Sarong Party Girls" in the audiobook version, read (authentically, per my memory of the dialect) in Singlish, Singapore's wonderful mish-mash of Chinese, English, Malay, and Hindi. And, while it's probably no longer on any of the streaming video services, an Australian-Singaporean joint production called "Serangoon Road," about Singapore in the mid-late 60s.
Wow that's a huge turn out to round up that many people!
I myself am an aspiring filmmaker trying to break into the business. Perhaps I should cast my first feature with an all Asian cast, and it's a smart move, marketing wise!
One of the best formulas for success, for everything that's sold, from laundry detergent to motion pictures, is "the same, only different." For entertainment, people want stories, and there's a finite number of stories to be told. "Love obtained" is one of the oldest and has a ready market.
There was also a hero(ine)'s journey story here, with a villain who, herself, had a valid and even laudable reason for opposing Rachel-- for her, family was everything and Rachel was going to take away Number 1 Son from the family. But Rachel wanted what was in her heart and, with the sidekick/guru's guidance, set out to win the day with her own power- game theory. When I saw the opening scene in the college classroom, I couldn't help but laugh, because I had already read about the mah jongg game, and knew why it was there. Pure Joseph Campbell, as filtered here.
You're the wrong person to make that movie. I would think it's worthwhile to understand why, as a story, it has resonated with so many people, so you can make movies that generate the same result.
And for the mother, wanting (much less getting) what is in your heart was itself a sin and a shame for a woman.
Quote:
and, with the sidekick/guru's guidance, set out to win the day with her own power- game theory. When I saw the opening scene in the college classroom, I couldn't help but laugh, because I had already read about the mah jongg game, and knew why it was there.
It took me a bit to understand how (with someone who explained it in this thread) Rachel played the same psychological game on the mother that she'd displayed in the classroom demonstration. I knew that she did (I knew the two games must have connected in that way), but I didn't know exactly how it played out in Mah Jongg compared to poker.
We'll just have to disagree. What she wanted was consistent with her cultural heritage.
Why would you disagree? The mother specifically said that a wife could not and should not go after what her own heart desires. At least a couple of times. The fact that she had given up her own heart's desire was a major point of her motivation. It may have been consistent with her cultural heritage--no argument from me on that--but it was a major issue with the mother against Rachel.
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