There’s the sort of wealth that buys designer clothes. Then there’s the sort of wealth that shuts down Rodeo Drive for a private Lunar New Year party, has a nine-piece band and a Gucci claw machine for a 1-year-old’s birthday, and takes a friend to their favorite restaurant — in Paris — as a treat.,” part of a wave of Asian and Asian American unscripted fare that has popped up on TV screens in the wake of the 2018 hit film “Crazy Rich Asians.
There are no Long Duk Dongs on his program. Instead, there’s fashionable Singaporean oil and gas heir Kane Lim, and his pal Kevin Kreider, a Korean American male model from Philadelphia who never seems to tire of taking off his shirt on camera. As the only apparent not-so-rich Asian on the show, Kreider is the viewer’s fish-out-of-water proxy for entering the realm of caviar and $10,000 bottles of wine.
What separates “Bling Empire” from its reality brethren aren’t the riches or chiseled abs, though. It’s the cultural references that are seamlessly woven into the fabric of the narrative: Lim offhandedly discussing Buddhism or Singaporean independence, or fellow cast member Cherie Chan’s month-long preparation of black vinegar-and-pig’s feet stew. The show doesn’t trouble itself with explaining to viewers that the dish is a traditional Chinese postpartum recovery recipe.
This show, too, bears the mark of “Crazy Rich Asians.” Awareness of the book and the movie helped the project along, says HBO Max unscripted head Jennifer O’Connell. But so did the producers’ ability to find an interesting family with a story to tell. While she wouldn’t get into specifics of viewership data, O’Connell is “pleased” with its performance on the service so far.
Chiu, prone to engaging in one-upmanship tactics with frenemy Shay on the show, has tried her hand at reality TV before. Working with Jenkins while he was at unscripted powerhouse Bunim/Murray, her husband Dr. Gabriel Chiu was the original doctor on “Botched,” the plastic-surgery-gone-wrong makeover show, she says.
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