Chan Is Missing

Pure, unadorned and brimming with insight. It's a kindly detective story, but it's mostly about how a person leaves their mark in small, decisive ways on the community the operate in, and how everyone they encounter has a different view of that person. Everyone sees only a fragment, and helplessly makes that into an inaccurate whole. It also provides a perfect black and white snapshot of Chinatown at that time. The movie is awash in the culture of the area in a way that feels completely natural.

Spotty acting (save the wonderful Wood Moy) does little to detract from the vivid and unique depiction of a culture, place, and time. Wang's script reportedly underwent some fairly major revisions from a more opaque structuralist treatment (he felt duty-bound not to let the first fully Chinese-American feature disappear up its own ass) but his noirish tale is still full of probing--and noncommercial--digressions on language, identity, and socioeconomic conflict. Edifying and enchanting.

Shockingly underviewed film, given the subsequent success of director Wayne Wang and this film's recognition in the National Film Registry.

I really enjoyed this low key slice-of-life of '80s SF Chinatown. I could listen to Wood Moy's voiceover surmisings all day. It's also a movie about the Chinese-American experience without needing racial tension. If you're like me and enjoy movies with people walking around talking like in nostalgic NYC, then the pace of this film and the gradual tone changes were perfect. Fav scenes: all the references to Charlie Chan and #1 son.

This movie might appear like a detective story at first, but it's pleasures are observational and ethnographic more than anything else. If you've ever been curious about Asian American identity or Chinatown in San Fran, this will appeal to you.

i second iconogassed's review, although one thing he doesn't mention is how damn funny it is!

The noir outline colored with the scrappy, up-close-and-personal spirit of 1980s indie wave, immersed in a very specific cultural pocket in one of the iconic American cities. A sort of eclectic crossroad that perhaps should be the hallmark of American cinema, where the identity of a person is not quite completely pieced together as a rumination on the careful balancing act, or conflict, between preservation and assimilation.

As a mystery, it's a little dull; as a broad tour of SF's Chinatown, it's pretty interesting. A little more Citizen Kane than ... er, Chinatown ... it has some insightful commentary on the immigration experience.