Crazy Rich Asian trailer teases with glitz, glamour and 'the Prince William of Asia'

Glitz, glamour, high stakes and gorgeous people so wealthy they're described as "crazy rich" — the first trailer for the big-screen adaptation Crazy Rich Asians is as opulent and spunky as you'd expect from a movie based on Kevin Kwan's larger-than-life bestseller. 

There's a lot riding on the film, which is based on the first instalment of Kwan's bestselling "novel of manners" trilogy exploring an unimaginably wealthy, jet set Asian family that's packed with outrageous personalities, fabulous schemers and catty manipulators. 

It's a big-budget contemporary film with an all-Asian principal cast and a departure from rare, earlier Hollywood efforts: immigrant-focused stories like The Joy Luck Club and period pieces like Memoirs of a Geisha.  

Emerging as the industry grapples with problems of representation, the major studio-made Crazy Rich Asians is an outlier.

"That's why I began writing these books to begin with: because I felt that contemporary, modern Asia was so underrepresented in fiction. It was always my dream to really kind of enlighten people: 'Hey! There's a whole world out there of empowered, attractive, dynamic Asians who could care less what's happening in Hollywood,'" Kwan told CBC News in 2017.

"There should be so many more movies, so many more TV shows, so much more media out there that really gives an accurate representation of our country, of Canada, of the world," he said last summer, following he published the trilogy's final book, Rich People Problems.

The upcoming romantic comedy, directed by Jon M. Chu, centres on an American-born professor's culture shock when, during a first visit to her boyfriend's homeland of Singapore, she discovers him to be the most eligible bachelor on the continent, aka "the Prince William of Asia" ("I'm much more of a Harry," is his response). 

​Led by Fresh Off the Boat star Constance Wu and Henry Golding, the Crazy Rich Asians cast is filled with up-and-coming international performers of Asian heritage, including Gemma Chan, Awkwafina and Harry Shum Jr. Established stars such as Michelle Yeoh and Ken Jeong round out the actors.

Crazy Rich Asians is slated for theatrical release on Aug. 15, 2018.