Chan Is Missing

"Chan is Missing," directed by Wayne Wang, is a masterful example of independent filmmaking at its best. Shot on a shoestring budget and featuring a cast of mostly unknown actors, the film explores the Chinese-American immigrant experience in San Francisco through the eyes of two taxi drivers, Jo and Steve, as they search for a friend named Chan who has disappeared with their money. The film is not only a remarkable piece of social commentary, but also a character study that delves deeply into the psyche of Chinese immigrants in America. Wang's nuanced direction and the superb performances of the lead actors imbue the film with a profound sense of authenticity and empathy. "Chan is Missing" is a film that seamlessly blends humor and pathos, making the audience both laugh and cry as they follow the two protagonists on their journey. Through Jo and Steve's conversations and interactions with other members of the Chinese community in San Francisco, the film explores themes of identity, culture clash, and the immigrant experience. What truly makes "Chan is Missing" stand out is the way it subverts expectations of the typical Hollywood detective story. Instead of a traditional thriller with high stakes and a clear resolution, the film is a quiet, introspective look at the human condition. The search for Chan becomes a metaphor for the characters' own search for their place in the world. In addition to its profound themes and poignant storytelling, the film is a technical marvel. Shot in black and white, the film captures the gritty realism of San Francisco in the early 1980s. The use of handheld cameras and natural lighting creates an immersive, documentary-style experience that draws the audience into the characters' world. Overall, "Chan is Missing" is a remarkable achievement in independent cinema. It is a film that continues to resonate with audiences decades after its release, as it provides a deeply insightful and empathetic perspective on the immigrant experience. Through its exceptional direction, superb acting, and poignant themes, "Chan is Missing" is a timeless masterpiece that will continue to captivate and inspire audiences for generations to come.

Here is a film like a Zen koan. Made for $20,000.00 dollars, it is obvious that the director Wayne Wang chose to focus on thematic content rather than be overly concerned about production values. This is a thoughtful and amusing story about a couple of cabbies who fork over $4,000.00 in cash to Chan Hung to go into business for themselves, and then spend the rest of the film looking for him. The more they search for him, the more we find ourselves entering upon a kaleidoscopic journey through the Chinese American community. We find everyone we meet reflecting Chan in some form or fashion without encountering Chan himself. The whole affair moves like a mystery of some kind. Wood May plays the older cabbie Jo and Marc Hayashi plays Steve. You could almost say they are a cinema verite' version of Charlie Chan and his number one son. But then we would be missing the point. After all, Chan is missing. What we have in his place is a vacuum filled with meditations about assimilation and the best things that the American and Chinese cultures have to offer each other. We see all this in terms of the unusual characters that are presented to us. Once again there is a Film Noir feel to this piece as Jo and Steve move about Chinatown talking to Chinese locals who may know Chan or have seen him. CHAN IS MISSING proved to be both a critical and commercial success, especially considering its low budget beginnings. Jo and Steve piece together clues that tantalize and lead to dead ends, seem to be getting nearer to Chan and possibly flirting with foul play or real danger of some kind to themselves or their missing business associate. People call in the middle of the night and Chan's wife seeks an audience with them. But despite all this, the air of mystery surrounding Chan's disappearance never seems to completely dissipate. The upshot reveals the Chinese and Chinese American people in that space that Chan has left for Jo and Steve to explore. There is no real guile to this, just a chain of interesting encounters that fans out visually across the spectrum that is the Chinese American people. The more Jo and Steve focus on Chan, the more our point of view expands to include more than just Chan and any stereotypical impressions we might have about Asian people garnered from the movies and television. The people we meet in CHAN IS MISSING seem realer than that. That is the triumph of CHAN IS MISSING. We go looking for him and find all his people holding up a mirror to us. Finally viewing the Chinese and Chinese American people without preconceived notions and finding them peering back at us without any masks we marvel with Jo and Steve. Could it be that Chan is nowhere to be found? Should we find Chan at this point would it add anything more to our discovery? One of the things I'll never forget is when Jo and Steve meet with Chan's daughter as she returns to them their money. She tosses off a line to them that makes her seem like a Chinese American trying to sound like a Caucasian American attempting to talk like an African American. These scene said worlds about assimilation in a diverse American society and was a novel experience of insight.

A thought that pinged in my head like when you get an important text alert: Money isn't real. People and communities are. Wang uses a mystery/searching clothesline to hang a character study that plays largely like a documentary about Identity, how citizens of Chinatown see themselves, how they fit in, what that question even means about why they should, and ultimately being American in a land where that term should be all inclusive but in practice it is not the case (and of course how other local politicians and how Chinese Americans can be split among themselves as well. You should know that before you start watching that it is intentionally low key and yet that doesn't mean Wang doesn't care about where he puts the camera or how to create some striking lighting (and if sometimes it's basic rough hand-held, he and his team do well with the 16mm black and white). Importantly, Wang casts it well so these two men, Wood Moy and Mark Yaheshi, are a believable, not without friction couple of young-and-old misfits who have energies that compliment and contrast well; this is so hard to get right sometimes casting for a film that has to rest on them, many times (take it from another ragtag Independent filmmaker), especially since Wang intentionally makes it about the detours. It's about all of the people and lives who would normally be peripheral figures in a more traditional mystery or Neo-Noir story, and while that makes some scenes a little longer or shaggier than we may be used to that is also what makes it special and more thoughtful. Chan is Missing is kind of an act of micro budget genre Smuggling, a story of a man who went missing with a stack of cash that is really about how two people talk to one another, about what's on their minds and simply what's going on in the world, and often that's something we don't get to see in American Cinema, Asian American or anyone. In other words, maybe you won't get the Won Ton soup you ordered, but you will get a surpsising meal and just be thankful it isnt those words backwards (Not Now!) It also features a thrilling Michel Legrand score for a couple of minutes that shows what a filmmaker can do with the right music with the right suspicious-following car set piece.

If you expect a movie to tell a story, to develop characters, to have actions, and their motivations, look elsewhere. If you're content to listen to bits of conversation between people you haven't been introduced to, who don't like each other much, who can't figure out what their lives are about, try this movie. Near the end of the film, the guy who's been looking for the missing person all film says, not only he doesn't know what happened to him, he doesn't know who he is. At one point the searcher and his partner receive a few thousand dollars that, we presume, somehow came from the missing person. We don't know why the money arrives, nor why the guy doesn't show up. If you want a missing person who just stays missing, whom no one seems to know much, look here for it. Or, if this is all you want, why see a movie? There's plenty similar "just life" going on everywhere, just as pointless.

Two cabbies search San Francisco's Chinatown for a mysterious character who has disappeared with their $4000. Their quest leads them on a humorous, if mundane, journey which illuminates the many problems experienced by Chinese-Americans trying to assimilate into contemporary American society. It is widely recognized as the first Asian-American feature narrative film to gain both theatrical distribution and critical acclaim outside of the Asian American community. And come to think of it, this seems right -- where are all the "Asian" films? We have plenty of kung fu imports, but where are the home-grown efforts? Where is the Asian equivalent of a "blaxploitation" subgenre? Anyway, this is a fun film that blends mystery, comedy and social commentary. I haven't had the pleasure to go to San Francisco or its Chinatown, but films like this make it all the more appealing.

The documentary type directing and acting style is absolutely brilliant! Wood Moy is stunning in his low-key naturalistic acting. Almost all of the characters in the film make you believe that there is no possible way they are not real people. Yes, the framework of the amateur investigation of the mystery provides incremental revelation of a truly fascinating subculture world. In toto, it shows the position and perspective of many different personalities in this world and how they relate to one another. Jo's cataloging of the various characters' opinions of the missing Chan illustrates how everyone's personal experience colors their perceptions. No innovative philosophies are interposed, yet the subtle notions we all have some inkling of are artfully insinuated upon our consciousness. This is truly an art film in the best sense of the term.

This film is an excellent example of film-making, even though it was apparently made on a shoestring AFI grant. It shows what you don't need -- high production values and special effects -- and what you do need (good writing/direction). In fact, I think it holds its own with all the great films of the past century. This film works on several levels. At the most surface point, it is an amusing sendup of the old Charlie Chan mystery films. Going a little further down it portrays discrimination against Chinese-Americans without showing anyone who is NOT Chinese-American. But let's go a little deeper. At one point, a character pulls out a snapshot of himself and the titular character; he can't really see Chan, whose image is obscured, but he can see himself. The point is, that's about all any of us CAN do -- we can't know others, so the best we can do, if we really try, is to know ourselves. Finally, Chan is missing, and -- spoiler here, spoiler here, watch out, watch out -- Chan STAYS missing. To me, this a a powerful demonstration of the true, sad fact that often what we most want we cannot find -- and sometimes the person we desperately want to see again is exactly the one we will not.

This early Wayne Wang feature is made on a small budget and reflects it in many ways, both good and bad. It is totally original. The beginning is completely captivating as we follow the two cabbies' search for the missing Chan. But, the pacing and cinema verite style both become clumsy and tedious before we're halfway through. The cabbies are fun to watch, and there is an interesting twist in the end to reward those who can stay awake that long. I'd recommend his next movie, Dim Sum, much higher than Chan is Missing. Both provide marvelous views of Chinese San Francisco.

This is the best depiction of cultural contact I have seen on film. The title points to several layers of meaning, some of which are missed by many viewers. Most obviously, this is a film about real Asian Americans, not the ersatz and offensive characters of the Charlie Chan films. That Chan is missing but not missed. At the same time, the film is a spoof of Charlie Chan films, with Jo the bumbling detective and Steve the number one son, in an outrageously profane update. Finally, the character in the film, Chan Hung, is missing, and his disappearance is symbolic of a passing that is to be mourned much more than the deservedly-forgotten Charlie Chan movies. Chan Hung is the original immigrant, who struggled to survive in his new country but could never shake his love of his original one. His missing image floats through the film like a lost soul, and adds poignance that helps to counterpoint the ribald comedy. Jo is the bridge, feeling Chan's loss, but fully rooted in America: an "ABC"--American Born Chinese. Steve is the impatient third generation, angry that the plight of the immigrants may overshadow the struggles that U.S.-born Asian Americans continue to face. The conclusion of the mystery is as inevitable as it is sad, but the spirit of the characters who inhabit this film is truly inspirational. One of a handful of films that define an essential part of the American experience.

Just watched the DVD, and Chan is Missing remains the one-off film it's always been - just a terrific little film. If people think the pap they call independent film today is anything but lower-budgeted mainstream film-making by people looking to get deals with majors, well, they should check out some real indy films. Thanks to companies like Miramax and Focus and others, there is no true independent film market anymore. And a not to "laursene" - you give Chan Is Missing a pretty nice "review" or whatever one calls these amateur writings, and yet you give it one star. Brilliant. And the "novelty" song "probably from the 30s" is I Enjoy Being A Girl by Rodgers and Hammerstein, from their musical Flower Drum Song, which was hardly written in the 30s. 1957 or '58 if I recall correctly.