![]() ![]() (“ Aquaman is all anyone over there is talking about right now,” says one executive, acknowledging another Warner Bros. While a lag between a film’s Stateside release and Chinese bow is not uncommon, that three-and-a-half-month gap effectively diminished enthusiasm for the romantic comedy, which came to be considered “yesterday’s news” by Chinese consumers. And that long vetting period led many industry observers (and some studio executives) to conclude that local censors were uneasy with the film’s ostentatious displays of wealth, as well as its correlation of Asian with “crazy.” Crazy Rich Asians was not “dated” by these authorities until mid-October, nearly two months after its American rollout. Of the 30 or so foreign movies annually approved for Chinese release, each is carefully vetted by censorship authorities (Exhibit A: Disney’s CGI fantasy-drama Christopher Robin was allegedly banned earlier this year due to the popularity of a meme likening Chinese president Xi Jinping to Winnie the Pooh.) And only once the films have been approved, the Communist government - as opposed to a film’s distributor - chooses the release window. ![]() Chu–directed film’s hostile reception in the Middle Kingdom can be attributed to a pupu platter of mitigating factors - some cultural, some aesthetic, others political - that conspired to derail its box-office prospects in the world’s second-biggest movie market.Ĭhinese authorities delayed CRA’s release So what made China less than crazy for CRA?Īccording to sources with knowledge of the way Crazy Rich Asians was distributed and marketed, the Jon M. “It feels like a bunch of rubbish in the carnival!” wrote one viewer, adding that CRA is “insulting the Chinese.” Asked another: “So Chinese people in the eyes of Europeans and Americans are just about clans, extravagant snobbery, a blind sense of superiority, and stubbornly clinging to outdated rules and ideas?” Although the crowd-pleasing film performed strongly across East Asia and Australia (which has a large Asian population) throughout the fall, over its debut weekend in Chinese theaters last weekend, CRA sold just $1.2 million in tickets - earning lackluster reviews and provoking withering scorn from some Chinese moviegoers who took to the Yelp-like crowd-sourced review platform Douban to express their displeasure with the movie’s perceived lack of authenticity and racial stereotyping. Which is why it comes as something of a shock that Crazy Rich Asians has been received so dismally in China. Now, CRA is squarely in the awards-season conversation, the recipient of a robust Best Picture “For Your Consideration” push by its distributor Warner Bros. In addition to making a bona fide movie star out of novice actor and first-time leading man Henry Golding, the $30 million movie (based on a best-selling novel of the same name by Kevin Kwan) almost single-handedly dragged industry expectations regarding Asian-American movies’ commerciality into the 21st century. The romantic comedy - the first Hollywood studio film to feature a predominantly Asian cast in a contemporary setting since 1993’s Joy Luck Club - eclipsed financial expectations, taking in $237.9 million in worldwide ticket sales, to become the top-grossing rom-com of the last decade, as well as the sixth highest-grossing film in that genre of all time. Since arriving in theaters in August, Crazy Rich Asians has been on a seemingly unstoppable march toward both critical and commercial glory. Awkwafina (left) and Constance Wu in Crazy Rich Asians.
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