The study examines Asian American–themed films to explore the interaction between music and image, and to consider how Asian American identities are articulated through film and film music. 

 Historically, Asian Americans have long endured persistent forms of social discrimination—a condition that also manifests in cinematic representations. Earlier portrayals were shaped by overt racial stereotypes and essentialized musical codes that fixed Asian Americans as cultural “others”. As Asian Americans gained broader social visibility, however, a new wave of films began adopting more diverse narrative strategies and cross-cultural musical practices that expanded the expressive possibilities of Asian American identity.

 The case studies—Crazy Rich Asians (2018), The Farewell (2019), and Love in Taipei (2022)—exemplify these shifting representation modes. Across the three films, musical design varies notably: some cues blend traditional timbres with Western classical orchestration; others employ fully Western scoring techniques; still others juxtapose or hybridize diverse popular styles. Rather than treating any single compositional approach as definitive, this study interprets these varied strategies as complementary perspectives that open multiple ways of understanding Asian American cultural representation across transnational contexts. In this sense, the discussion offers a comparative framework contrasting earlier stereotype-driven scoring with contemporary practices of hybridity, resistance, and curation, suggesting that film music functions as a site of cultural negotiation where Asian American identities are continually shaped and redefined.