VIEWFINDER

A filmmaker looks back at his life, from his time growing up in Silicon Valley through his direction of Crazy Rich Asians and the forthcoming film version of Wicked.

Chu, a hardworking and clearly cheerful (“I [don't] have dark and brooding in me”) director and screenwriter, is the youngest of five children in a family of Taiwanese immigrants, and his parents built and still run a well-known restaurant in Los Altos. With occasional inspirational and practical asides to readers, whether they're aspiring filmmakers or not, the author, writing with McCarter, details a childhood spent scrabbling together digital film equipment—often discarded by the patrons of his parents' restaurant—and working on elaborate projects with his friends. During his years at the University of Southern California, Chu cultivated a passion for freewheeling musical extravaganzas, and though he didn’t always fit in, he won multiple awards. The following years included a stint as a wunderkind, during which he was temporarily taken up as a project by Steven Spielberg, the lows of unemployment and “development hell” after he was fired from his first project, many years of working on sequels, from Step Up 2 to G.I. Joe: Retaliation, and filming two Justin Bieber live concert films. As he recounts, Chu really came into his own with Crazy Rich Asians, the first full-length movie to allow him to explore his heritage, and In the Heights, which gave him a chance to do the kind of musical he had always longed to produce. Occasionally introspective, as he examines why his life and work sometimes seemed to work and sometimes didn't, and always down to earth, the author is a reliable guide through many of the less-glamorous aspects of being a director.

Entertaining insights from a unique film industry insider.