In the film, adapted from Kevin Kwan’s best-selling novel of the same name, Wu plays Rachel Chu, a down-to-earth Chinese-American professor at New York University who is invited to a Singapore wedding by her boyfriend, Nick (Golding). She soon discovers he’s filthy rich, and Rachel falls victim to the snobbery of Singapore’s elite, including Nick’s controlling mother, Eleanor (Michelle Yeoh), who disapproves of her son’s “mainland” girlfriend. A psychological game of chicken ensues.
这部电影改编自凯文·关的同名畅销小说，吴恬敏在剧中扮演纽约大学一位脚踏实地的华裔美国人教授朱瑞秋，她的男友尼克(戈尔丁饰)邀请她去新加坡参加婚礼。不久，朱瑞秋发现尼克的满身铜臭，瑞秋成为新加坡精英谄上欺下的牺牲品，包括尼克控制欲极强的母亲爱莉（杨紫琼饰演），爱莉不同意儿子的“大陆”女友。一场斗鸡博弈的心理游戏就此展开。
Unlike the broadly funny immigrant Jessica on Fresh Off the Boat, the challenge with Rachel was adding nuance to a “straight woman” surrounded by big personalities. “When you play someone from the outside, you can make that character sing, because they’re either a badass or funny—one thing or the other,” she says. “You’re painting with just blue, but there’s a lot you can do with that blue. This time,” she adds, “I had more tools, which is great, but it also came with more responsibility.”
和《初来乍到》中的有趣的新移民杰西卡不同，瑞秋这个角色的挑战是给有很强个性的“直女”增加些细微差别。“当你扮演一个来自外部的角色时，你可以让这个角色唱歌，因为他们要么是坏蛋要么是搞笑的——不是这样就是那样，” 吴恬敏表示。“你只用蓝色作画，但是蓝色可以用来做很多事情。这一次，”她补充道，“我有了更多的工具，这很好，但它也带来了更多的责任。”
Director Jon M. Chu is cautiously optimistic about how the film will be received following early test screenings. Audiences cried “not because of what happens in the movie,” he says, “but just at the idea of the representation.” And representation that offers a full spectrum of contemporary Asians, rather than simple clichés. Many are fabulously wealthy and entitled, like a Singaporean, played by Ken Jeong, who tells his son to finish his food, because “there are a lot of starving child in America.”
导演朱浩伟对该片在早期试映后的反响持谨慎乐观态度。观众流泪“不是因为电影里发生了什么，” 朱浩伟表示，“而仅仅是呈现出来的概念。”这种呈现提供了当代亚洲人的全貌，而不是简单的陈词滥调。很多亚洲人都很有钱有权，就像由肯·郑扮演的新加坡人，他让儿子不要剩饭，因为“美国有很多孩子在挨饿。”
Chu and screenwriters Peter Chiarelli and Adele Lim actually downplayed the over-the-top wealth in the novel. “Our budget wasn’t big enough for all those designer labels,” Chu says with a laugh. (Wu jokes that white viewers might question the legitimacy of such consumerism: “Hey, they didn’t buy designer clothes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!”)Instead, the writers focused on the emotional journey any Asian-American takes when traveling to Asia for the first time—like Chu’s own trip, when he was 9. “Your cultural identity splits,” says the California-raised director, with a Taiwanese mother and a Chinese father. “You think you have to make a choice, whether you’re Asian or not. But then you get to remix your cultures—reassessing the philosophies of each and deciding what to carry on.”
朱浩伟和编剧皮特·基亚雷利和阿黛尔·林实际上在小说中淡化了过度的财富。“我们的预算不够用上所有的设计师品牌，”朱浩伟笑着说。（吴恬敏开玩笑说，白人观众可能会质疑这种消费主义的合法性:“嘿，他们没买《卧虎藏龙》里的名牌衣服!”） 相反，两位编剧关注的是亚裔美国人第一次到亚洲旅行时所经历的情感之旅——比如朱浩伟9岁时的第一次旅行。“你的文化身份分裂了，” 这位在加州长大、母亲是台湾人、父亲是中国人的导演说。“你认为你必须做出选择，不管你是不是亚洲人。但之后你要重新整合这些文化——再次评估每种文化蕴含的哲学，并决定要继承哪一种。”
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