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Spoilers ahead forCrazy Rich Asians.
Crazy Rich Asianswraps up on a textbook rom-com happy ending thats no less ravishing for being familiar.
The mahjong scene is the moment when the dragon finally comes out.
He said hed walk away from his family and you for good.
But dont worry, I turned him down.
The game becomes an analogy for their struggle and their conflict over Nick.
A poor, raised-by-a-single-mother, low class, immigrant nobody.
She doesnt need anything, Chu says.
Shes walking away with an understanding of how unique her dual culture is.
Heres Chu and Lims anatomy of the scene.
Rachels aptitude for mahjong is a silent riposte to Eleanor.
The scene is written so viewers dont need to understand the game to understand the story.
But if youre curious about the specifics, heres how it goes down.
Both will make a set.
Eleanor has two other Bamboo 8s, so the tile would also complete a set for her.
With that tile, Rachel knows shes already won, says Chu.
By discarding it, Eleanor wins, and thats the sacrifice.
When Rachel reveals her hand at the end of the scene, she reveals that she let Eleanor win.
The original mahjong tiles had to be swapped out because they didnt make enough noise.
Its so distinctive, and when they played, my aunt and uncle became different people.
They were fast, and fierce, and they were strategic and smart and in attack mode.
That really influenced the way I think about mahjong.
Chu choreographed the scene as a fight sequence, with the sound of the tiles as the score.
We swapped them out for uglier tiles that had the weight that I really wanted.
Wu and Yeoh both had very strong feelings about the scene and what each of their characters would communicate.
I need to say these things, and defend my way of living!
It was great, I ended up putting both parts together and creating this mish-mosh blend.
Eleanor wouldnt put up with that.
And we didnt want this to be a story of two women fighting over a man.
Wu had a tough time getting through the scene emotionally.
She would be crying and her eyes started to get really puffy.
When we watched it back, people were crying on set.
Every time she said it, it was so hard for her to keep it together.
Theres a lot going on with that line, says Peter Chiarelli, who co-wrote the screenplay with Lim.
Second, I wanted that line to rattle Eleanor and haunt her dreams.
The other players at the table were originally played for laughs.
Mahjong generally requires four players, which is why there are two other nameless women at the table.
(Rachel explains in a throwaway line that theyre deaf and only speak Hokkien.)
That loaded glance between Eleanor and Rachels mother wasnt scripted.
When she holds onto Rachel, grabs her arm, its exactly the way my mom held us.
The scenes immediately before and after the mahjong game both changed in the final edit.
In the original cut, the viewer already knows Rachel has turned Nick down before the mahjong scene begins.
Nick says I needed you, and you put me there, and you think that was worth it?
