Pun Salad

Two words: Michelle Yeoh. Even though she plays the sorta-baddie here. How can anyone take their eyes off her when she's onscreen? Can't happen. Extra star for this movie, just because: Michelle Yeoh.

And (besides Ms. Yeoh) the charm of this movie is that everyone's (a) Asian and (b) rich (with associated garishness). (I know they're supposed to be crazy too, but that's pretty mild.) Take away the crazy rich factor, and it's a very formulaic romantic comedy.

Anyway: heroine Rachel is an econ prof (specializing in game theory) at NYU. She and her hunky boyfriend Nick are mutually smitten, so Nick uses the excuse of a friend's wedding in Singapore to invite Rachel over to meet his family as well.

And they are, as my mom used to say, falling-in-the-ditch rich, a little detail that Nick has not disclosed to Rachel. Rachel gets her first clue when they don't get seats on the plane for the flight over: they get a private suite. And the holy-cow-they-are-rich revelations keep on coming.

But the fly in the ointment is Nick's mom, who has different ideas about a proper girl for Nick. She considers Rachel to be a "banana", yellow on the outside, white (specifically: American white) on the inside. And this leads to the inevitable crisis. Which (in turn) leads to … well, if you've seen more than six or so romantic comedies, you won't be surprised how it turns out.

Fortunately, nearly everyone has either an impeccable American or English accent. Unfortunately, and don't get me wrong, there are a lot of characters, we meet them in a very short time, and I had a they-all-kinda-look-alike problem.

And really don't get me wrong, this isn't particularly a racial thing: I have the same issue with some movies where the cast consists of a lot of young and pretty white people.

But (bottom line) a not inconsiderable amount of fun. Mrs. Salad and I attended s Super Bargain Tuesday showing at the Brickyard Square 12 in Epping, a mere $10 for both of us.