a clip!!

"I was asking (of myself) not "is this a great Asian-American film", but "is this a great film". If the main character was a mostly unknown white guy getting his grandmother's house in England, would you feel' the same way about it?"

I think it's a remarkable film regardless of whether or not there is an Asian guy (I'll also address your criticisms):

SPOILERS

My interpretation of the film:

First of all, the movie's not about a guy getting his grandmother's house. It's about a guy so emotionally wounded, he can't connect to anything in his life. The way he treats women is the result of his mother dying at a young age. I think his mother was the last woman he was close to, and after she died, he blamed her for leaving him. So he distances himself from the women in his life because he is afraid they'll leave him. This is obvious when you see that he cries every time he's in bed with a woman (except Miki)

Addy also lost her mother and her father is not a big part of her life. Notice when Liam is telling Joe about Shanghai, he asks Joe to take her to school. Her father obviously is not there for her. Addy sees Liam as a replacement father figure. Liam envies Addy because she is so free and so emotionally open, the exact opposite of himself. Her childish dialogue is there for a reason. Addy is so open, she's not afraid to sound stupid, not afraid to talk to strangers, not afraid to sing on a bus. She talks the way she wants to talk, says what she wants to say, without any self-consciousness. Most teenagers try to talk older because they're insecure of their own immaturity. So the reasons they're attracted to each other is clear (which already makes it much better than most romantic comedies).

Liam goes to Shanghai because he is so desperate to connect to anything. When he meets Miki, she sees a part of his mother in her (being Chinese). He also feels that the house is the remaining link to his family (his last living family member, his father, is basically dead to him). On impulse, he decides that Shanghai is for him. But he does this only for superficial reasons. Although he looks Chinese, he realizes later that he really has no understanding of what it means at all.

Watch how he tells Miki how his mother dies, then later, in the flashback, he doesn't tell Addy, even though she just poured her heart out to him. It shows his growth as a character and it shows him getting go. The movie is so carefully structured, revealing details of his character as the story requires them. Shanghai also changes throughout, from Liam's glitzy, glamorous, romanticized version in the beginning to the Shanghai he sees after getting thrown out of the car.

You say the movie is predictable but the predictable version would've had him staying in China and ending up with Miki. That's the flaw of most "going back to homeland" stories. Liam is American. He grew up with American culture. I think Liam's charm comes from his sense of humor, yet Miki didn't understand any of his jokes. He tries to force feelings for her because she looks closer to his mother than American women and also because it would be the more socially acceptable relationship, in contrast to Addy which is not (she's not only white but also sixteen). Addy doesn't care what's socially acceptable or not, she follows her heart, which is what Liam learns to do at the end.

I think the best art allows you to come up with your own interpretations rather than to force-feed you. This film never explains why he cries. It doesn't explain his behavior with women. It doesn't explain why he likes Addy or vice versa. But all the clues for there for everyone paying attention and I spent awhile piecing it together. This is a film that can be analyzed in many different ways. If there is a flaw, it's that it is so entertaining and easy to watch, it's very easy to gloss over the depths of Liam and Addy's characters (which you might've done).

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