Crazy Rich Asians

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Not recommended under 8, parental guidance recommended 8 to 13 due to adult themes, sexual references and some coarse language. Also lacks interest for younger children.

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Crazy Rich Asians
  • a review of Crazy Rich Asians completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 3 September 2018.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 8 Not recommended due to adult themes, sexual references and some coarse language. Also lack of interest.
Children 8 to 13 Parental guidance recommended due to adult themes, sexual references and some coarse language.
Viewers 13 and over OK for this age group

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Crazy Rich Asians
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes and coarse language
Length: 120 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

Crazy Rich Asians is a romantic comedy based on the best-selling novel of the same name by author Kevin Kwan. Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is a young Asian-American woman who teaches economics at New York University. Her boyfriend, the dashingly handsome Nick Young (Henry Ewan Golding), invites her to travel to Singapore to attend his best friend’s wedding. When she arrives at the airport, Rachel is very surprised to be ushered into first class, and Nick admits to her that his family is ‘comfortable’. It gradually becomes clear to Rachel that ‘comfortable’ is an understatement, and she discovers that Nick is actually the beloved son and heir to one of Singapore’s richest and most powerful families. Not only must Rachel navigate many cultural challenges, she is also faced with the hostility of Nick’s formidable mother Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh). Rachel’s holiday in Singapore turns out to be so much more than she bargained for.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Wealth and social status; love and romance; traditional family values versus modern values; clash between Eastern and Western cultural values

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

Nothing of concern

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

A woman confronts her husband about his affair, they are both distressed, and it is an emotional scene.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

The emotional scene described above may also disturb this age group

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Nothing of concern

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Nothing of concern

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Luxury designer brands and goods, e.g. Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Rolex etc.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • A man asks: “What’s Rachel bringing to the party? Small tits?”
  • Someone refers to Rachel as the right kind of girl to date, adding in: ‘She’s got a great backside’.

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • Several scenes of men naked to the waist, in the shower or getting dressed.
  • A bachelor party is organised and there is a boat full of bikini-clad women with sashes indicating the country they are from (possibly beauty queens), brought in just to entertain the men.
  • A man wearing a gold G-string.
  • A man grabs a woman in a passionate embrace and squeezes her breasts dramatically whilst saying “I can feel all of you, all of me”
  • When Rachel sees her boyfriend getting out of bed half naked she looks at him suggestively and says “Hubba hubba!” and he comes back to bed and lies on top of her, kissing her passionately.

 

Use of substances

There is social drinking by adults at parties and social gatherings.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • asshole, slutty, balls, bitch, tits, bullshit, smart-ass.

In a nutshell

Crazy Rich Asians is a light, frothy rom-com with plenty of laughs and visual appeal. It is unashamedly materialistic and relies heavily on cultural stereotypes for comic value; but is likely to be enjoyed by teens and adults nonetheless. It is likely to lack interest for children under 8 and is not recommended for this age group, with parental guidance recommended for children aged 8 to 13 due to adult themes, sexual references and coarse language.

The main messages from this movie are to stand up for yourself and be confident and to never be ashamed of your roots.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • cultural sensitivity.
  • placing love and good relationships as a priority over money and wealth.
  • respect for family.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • The clash between traditional beliefs or behaviours and more modern ideas.
  • The differences and similarities between Western and Eastern cultures.