As someone who is only a quarter Japanese, I also loved this movie. I only mention my heritage because there were cultural cues that I missed given my mostly LatinX background. It was a cute, heartfelt love story. More like this, plz!

I found it a huge disappointment, largely for its wildly misleading portrayal of Singapore but also for some truly unbearable supporting characters. They could at least have tried to capture some of the flavour (and diversity) of the place. Ken Jeong may be the most annoying actor currently working in American cinema. Michelle Yeoh was the best thing about it, making the most of her one-note role. I'm afraid to say that Henry Golding was just awful, wooden and uncharismatic.

The story was all flash and no substance. It wasn't as if I was expecting a lot, but I wanted some laughs, if the story was going to be so basic.

I think for what it was, it was a great movie. I don't see where the backlash is coming from. I did hear, however, that the portrayal of Singapore was inaccurate. But that's mostly because people who live there say there's nothing to do (maybe unless you're rich). It was just a different take on family dynamics. This might just be a movie that was made for an Asian audience and isn't trying to appeal to another demographic. Sometimes the story suffers if you think too broadly.

@ajsmitty89 said:

I think for what it was, it was a great movie. I don't see where the backlash is coming from. I did hear, however, that the portrayal of Singapore was inaccurate. But that's mostly because people who live there say there's nothing to do (maybe unless you're rich). It was just a different take on family dynamics. This might just be a movie that was made for an Asian audience and isn't trying to appeal to another demographic. Sometimes the story suffers if you think too broadly.

The primary issue which people have is not that there is nothing to do in Singapore - which is quite plainly not true - but rather that the film portrays it as pretty much exclusively Chinese rather than a nation with three principal races. The only Malay or Indian faces shown in the film are in positions of servitude, and even then barely at all. It is clearly a film about Singapore made by people who know very little about the country. The equivalent would be a film about contemporary New York in which every lead, significant supporting character and background extra was white, something about which other ethnicities would be rightly up in arms.

Okay, well that makes more sense. I'm ambivalent about that part myself. But then again, that seems like something you'd tackle in another movie, from another perspective. The movie is based on a book called "Crazy Rich Asians." Is there a lot of cultural mixing in Singapore? I guess the best friend could have been Malaysian. That would have made things more interesting. I don't know, I'm not sure what they could have done to fix that...

I think what most critics are missing about this film is that it is the first time we are seeing an entirely Asian cast carry a movie. This is never happened in Hollywood before. So yes, it does not show the true diversity of socio-economic blend in Singapore nor does it show other ethnic groups in sufficient numbers. As someone said, that would be a subject for another movie. I, for one, am glad to see Asians in other than supporting roles.

The movie was funny, though it could have been more so. It was an orgy of decadent opulence in the way most Hollywood fantasies are. It could have done much more with the "Cinderella" theme, especially since it even clearly toyed with the idea. It's focus was however to illustrate the cultural divide between the Asian- American and Asian cultures and in that sense it was perhaps aimed at more specific audience.

So perhaps most Americans will not "get" the movie, those who come from or are familiar with any other different culture, certainly will!