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美国国家公共电台 NPR 'Crazy Rich Asians': Love, Loyalty And Lots Of Money

时间:2018-08-17 09:00:55

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

"Crazy Rich Asians" is a movie about life and love among the super wealthy in Southeast Asia, and the movie opens today. Actress Awkwafina is in a breakout role as the heroine's best friend, and she explains...

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CRAZY RICH ASIANS")

AWKWAFINA: (As Peik Lin Goh) These people aren't just rich, OK? They're crazy rich.

GREENE: Now, for an industry that has not only underrepresented Asian and Asian-American characters and has cast white actors in Asian roles, this movie is a really big deal. Karen Grigsby Bates from our Code Switch team has more.

KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE1: As "Crazy Rich Asians" begins, Nick Young, played by newcomer Henry Golding, has been seeing Rachel Chu - "Fresh Off The Boat's" Constance Wu - for a year. They're both attractive, 30-something professors at NYU. When the couple flies to Singapore over spring break so Nick can attend his best friend's wedding, by habit, Rachel heads to the back of the plane. No, Nick gently tells her, our seats are here in first class. Turns out his family owns part of the airline. Rachel is taken aback.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CRAZY RICH ASIANS")

CONSTANCE WU: (As Rachel Chu) So your family is like rich?

HENRY GOLDING: (As Nick Young) We're comfortable.

WU: (As Rachel Chu) That is exactly what a super-rich person would say.

BATES: Rachel thought Nick was like her - normal. She's trying to get her head around the fact that she's seriously dating a guy who's more "Downton Abbey" than downtown loft2.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CRAZY RICH ASIANS")

WU: (As Rachel Chu) It's not a big deal, obviously. I just think it's kind of weird3 that I had no idea. I mean, you have a Jamba Juice card.

BATES: Hey, rich people love a bargain. Several months ago, film director Jon M. Chu took time out from editing the film to explain that Rachel has a very specific role.

JON M. CHU: Rachel is our way, from our perspective, an outsider coming into Singapore and not knowing this place and then slowly peeling away the layers of like, oh, this is rich. Oh, no, this is even more rich. Oh, no, this is really, really - this is crazy rich. And that journey through our movie, I think, is really fun.

BATES: When it's not terrifying. Nick takes Rachel to a party at his parents' palatial4 estate, and she tries to make polite small talk with Nick's coolly proper mother, Eleanor, played by Michelle Yeoh. She's surprised to discover Nick's mother is not just a rich man's pampered5 wife.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CRAZY RICH ASIANS")

WU: (As Rachel Chu) Oh, I didn't know you were a lawyer.

MICHELLE YEOH: (As Eleanor Young) I withdrew from university when we got married. I chose to help my husband run a business and to raise a family. For me, it was a privilege. But for you, you may think it's old-fashioned. But all this doesn't just happen. It's because we know to put family first.

BATES: Michelle Yeoh, famous for her role in "Crouching6 Tiger, Hidden Dragon," says Eleanor is not an evil would-be mother-in-law. She's someone who has been through the grueling process of trying to fit into her husband's family. Yeoh says Eleanor knows Rachel will have a tough time if she becomes part of this clan7.

YEOH: It's not because she thinks that she's not worthy8 of a son or she's come from poor families, nothing like that. I think she understands that, you know, she comes from a society where you are taught to be independent. You are taught to take care of yourself first, and then everything comes after that.

BATES: And therein lies one of the central tensions in the movie. Just because you share the same ethnicity doesn't mean you share the same culture. The old-world ideas of filial piety9, of sacrificing individual wants and aspirations10 for the family's collective need is a theme in "Crazy Rich Asians." Director John Chu says everyone involved in the film was on a mission.

CHU: Everyone had to agree that this wasn't just a romantic comedy that we're doing, that it was very important that the culture was part of the story itself, part of the characters themselves.

BATES: Chu knew he wanted a mostly Asian cast, and he knew he had to look beyond the U.S. There simply weren't enough actors otherwise. So he put out an open casting call on YouTube and got thousands of auditioners.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHU: Hey, everybody. I'm Jon M. Chu, the director of Warner Brothers' upcoming film, "Crazy Rich Asians," based off...

BATES: And auditioners got callbacks.

CHU: We had a casting director here in Vancouver, in New York, in London, in Australia, in Singapore, in Malaysia. I mean, these were all people who have to be on the clock, on the ground. All that costs money for not just a month, for months.

BATES: Romantic lead Henry Golding was known in Singapore as the host of a travel show, but he'd never acted before. No one objected to that, but early on, there was a little social media uproar11 about casting someone who was half Malaysian, half English. John Chu says Golding might not have been completely Asian, but he was 100 percent Nick.

CHU: In a weird way, it almost felt like, you don't cast him, what are you saying?

BATES: Golding has heard the arguments about who's truly Asian and says this to the skeptics.

GOLDING: Who are you to say that I'm less Asian than you? I grew up in Asia. I was born in Asia. I've lived so many different Asian cultures. I'm definitely more Asian than a lot of people who have never been to Asia. But by blood and by race, they instantly say, I deserve to be Asian. I've worked really hard to be Asian, and I think I'm Asian enough.

BATES: E.J. David (ph) teaches cross cultural psychology12 at the University of Alaska Anchorage. He's Filipino and has a problem with how some have described "Crazy Rich Asians" as the first primarily-Asian cast since 1993's "Joy Luck Club."

E.J. DAVID: I don't agree with that interpretation13 because it's not true.

BATES: David cites the critically-acclaimed 2006 film "The Namesake" based on Jhumpa Lahiri's best-selling novel starring Kal Penn. "The Namesake" looks at many of the same issues raised in "Crazy Rich Asians" - obligation to family, respect for culture, fitting in but with South Asian characters. Yet, David says, it's rarely mentioned as an Asian movie.

DAVID: So what is it, brown Asians don't count? You know, that's pretty offensive.

BATES: The fact is Asians are not a monolith. "Crazy Rich Asians" shows that there are all kinds of Asians spread throughout the globe - Taiwanese who are also Australian, Malaysians who are also British, Indonesians who are from China and more. Director John Chu says he spent his childhood longing14 to see someone who looked like him on screen. He hopes this film will be that for others.

CHU: I'm making it for my own 12-year-old self and my daughter and this generation that's coming.

BATES: And Henry Golding hopes it will be understood beyond his community.

GOLDING: It's a story about Asians, but for me, it's the universality of the story in general. You could be Latino, you could be black, you could be Caucasian, you can be from Africa and realize that, like, the story transcends15 that of race. It's about love.

BATES: And let's face it - is about love among the 0.001 percent because they have hearts too. Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF TAKENOBU'S "CHE")


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 byline sSXyQ     
n.署名;v.署名
参考例句:
  • His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
  • We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。
2 loft VkhyQ     
n.阁楼,顶楼
参考例句:
  • We could see up into the loft from bottom of the stairs.我们能从楼梯脚边望到阁楼的内部。
  • By converting the loft,they were able to have two extra bedrooms.把阁楼改造一下,他们就可以多出两间卧室。
3 weird bghw8     
adj.古怪的,离奇的;怪诞的,神秘而可怕的
参考例句:
  • From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来,他好像有点怪。
  • His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。
4 palatial gKhx0     
adj.宫殿般的,宏伟的
参考例句:
  • Palatial office buildings are being constructed in the city.那个城市正在兴建一些宫殿式办公大楼。
  • He bought a palatial house.他买了套富丽堂皇的大房子。
5 pampered pampered     
adj.饮食过量的,饮食奢侈的v.纵容,宠,娇养( pamper的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The lazy scum deserve worse. What if they ain't fed up and pampered? 他们吃不饱,他们的要求满足不了,这又有什么关系? 来自飘(部分)
  • She petted and pampered him and would let no one discipline him but she, herself. 她爱他,娇养他,而且除了她自己以外,她不允许任何人管教他。 来自辞典例句
6 crouching crouching     
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • a hulking figure crouching in the darkness 黑暗中蹲伏着的一个庞大身影
  • A young man was crouching by the table, busily searching for something. 一个年轻人正蹲在桌边翻看什么。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译
7 clan Dq5zi     
n.氏族,部落,宗族,家族,宗派
参考例句:
  • She ranks as my junior in the clan.她的辈分比我小。
  • The Chinese Christians,therefore,practically excommunicate themselves from their own clan.所以,中国的基督徒简直是被逐出了自己的家族了。
8 worthy vftwB     
adj.(of)值得的,配得上的;有价值的
参考例句:
  • I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
  • There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。
9 piety muuy3     
n.虔诚,虔敬
参考例句:
  • They were drawn to the church not by piety but by curiosity.他们去教堂不是出于虔诚而是出于好奇。
  • Experience makes us see an enormous difference between piety and goodness.经验使我们看到虔诚与善意之间有着巨大的区别。
10 aspirations a60ebedc36cdd304870aeab399069f9e     
强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 ); 志向; 发送气音; 发 h 音
参考例句:
  • I didn't realize you had political aspirations. 我没有意识到你有政治上的抱负。
  • The new treaty embodies the aspirations of most nonaligned countries. 新条约体现了大多数不结盟国家的愿望。
11 uproar LHfyc     
n.骚动,喧嚣,鼎沸
参考例句:
  • She could hear the uproar in the room.她能听见房间里的吵闹声。
  • His remarks threw the audience into an uproar.他的讲话使听众沸腾起来。
12 psychology U0Wze     
n.心理,心理学,心理状态
参考例句:
  • She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
  • He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。
13 interpretation P5jxQ     
n.解释,说明,描述;艺术处理
参考例句:
  • His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
  • Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。
14 longing 98bzd     
n.(for)渴望
参考例句:
  • Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
  • His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。
15 transcends dfa28a18c43373ca174d5387d99aafdf     
超出或超越(经验、信念、描写能力等)的范围( transcend的第三人称单数 ); 优于或胜过…
参考例句:
  • The chemical dilution technique transcends most of the difficulties. 化学稀释法能克服大部分困难。
  • The genius of Shakespeare transcends that of all other English poets. 莎士比亚的才华胜过所有的其他英国诗人。

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