Asian leads in a big budget Hollywood movie are a big deal for people who never see people who look like them on screen. That’s where most of the hype came from - excitement (some of it manufactured and emphasised by media outlets to show they understand the value of progressive representation) from fans about a movie that has a lot of Asian, and especially Chinese, cultural references.

The movie was a bit wacky but I feel it squandered a lot of good, silly ideas by lingering on them too much, and trying to tie it all together at the end in some coherent theme. It felt like the producers overrode the creatives’ control over the project because the producers have been doing it longer and ‘know what sells’. So many movies are ruined by creatively bankrupt executives desperately trying to make themselves relevant and killing a project as a result.

It was hardly the best film of the year, and it didn’t reach the potential it might have if corporate interests hadn’t stomped on the imaginative ideas at the heart of the story. However, it was financially successful and won Best Picture, so maybe the next time they have a big-budget Asian movie it will be more like a Stephen Chow film and less like a formulaic money-maker aimed at the lucrative Chinese market, a la Shang-Chi. It’s a good thing the movie was made, even if it wasn’t that great in the end.