Why Randall Park Opens His New Film Shortcomings With A 'Spoof' Of Crazy Rich Asians

Your local Asian American sitcom funnyman veteran Randall Park is graduating from acting on TV to directing his own feature-length film! Shortly after "Everything Everywhere All at Once" dominated the 2023 Oscar nominations, Park's directorial debut "Shortcomings," made its humble premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

The timing here is miraculous considering the subject material of Park's film. "Shortcomings," based on the 2007 graphic novel of the same name (its author Adrian Tomine returns to write the screenplay), centers on a group of young Bay Area Asian Americans. Coincidentally, the film opens on a spoof of "Crazy Rich Asians," for which Park's protagonist, Ben (Justin H. Min, of "The Umbrella Academy" fame), a film school dropout and art-house manager expresses a large distaste. Ben's girlfriend, Miko (Ally Maki) tries to comfort Ben by arguing that the rom-com could be the jumping-off point for something fresher and "artsier" down the line.

"Shortcomings" uses this scene as a jumping-off point to explore many familiar conversations that the young, politically/socially aware AAPI are well acquainted with by now — but there's something deeply ironic about the timing of this opening scene, written in a time where it seems that something very off-kilter that's also deeply invested in Asian American themes like "Everything Everywhere All at Once" feels like an impossibility.

The Washington Post sat down with Randall Park to discuss his new directorial debut, and why exactly he decided to open his film with a cheeky parody of one of the strongest Asian American box office successes to date.

"Well, the graphic novel came out in 2007, and while the themes in the story were always evergreen, there were details that Adrian and I thought could use an update" Randall Park explained. When "Shortcomings" was first published, it was a solid representation of the Millennial Asian American diaspora at the time, but Park's film distinctly places this story in a contemporary lens. Why not address how contemporary Asian American pop culture has shifted in the meantime?

The parody just also just naturally fits when characterizing a cynical, jaded protagonist like Ben, who describes the film as a "garish mainstream rom-com that glorifies a capitalistic fantasy." To this day, "Crazy Rich Asians" is a divisive film in the Asian American community, whilst many praise its undeniable impact on the film industry, there are many who feel that the film is regressive in other severe ways. Since the film is explicitly told from Ben's own perspective, it allowed some room to exaggerate and play up the perception of the film he has in his mind:

"We just felt like using a 'Crazy Rich Asians'-like film to open the movie felt modern, but also very real, because characters like Ben are so real to me. And when 'Crazy Rich Asians' came out, it was this 'big movement' and everyone was so excited because it was such a big deal, but there were always people who almost felt like they were being pressured to like it. Ben as a character really embodies a lot of folks that I knew who were almost resentful at the movie for kind of pressuring them to like it."

To those outside of the community, it might just seem like "just another movie." But for an underrepresented group of people in the media like Asian Americans, the pressure to engage or to feel represented and seen by one type of film is a unique kind of struggle. The concept of Asian American identity is still fairly new and flexible, and for characters like Ben, who don't align with the broad and monolithic shades of what it means to be Asian American seen in "Crazy Rich Asians," it can be a tricky thing to navigate in social situations. Randall Park continued by saying: 

"I think it speaks to the narrative scarcity in terms of how basically that movie was to represent all Asian Americans. I think some people felt like, 'Well, I don't like that kind of movie. Why do I have to like it?' And I think a character like Ben kind of epitomizes that. He's highly opinionated. He's very judgmental. And the idea of feeling like he has to like a movie like that because of the community, it really bristles with him, and I think that was a very real thing. One movie can't represent everybody, and certainly not someone like Ben."

Randall Park describes the vision of his directorial debut as a showcase of performance, interested in digging into flawed characters and peering into "the humanity underneath." Hence the name, "Shortcomings." Park is interested in stepping away from his commercial image in making an independent film that shows an alternative side to his own culture. Here's hoping that Park's film makes room in Hollywood for nuanced, messier aspects of Asian American life.