Chan Is Missing

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.

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.

This movie is among the first in Asian-American cinema, and also a very excellent independent film. Very well-directed and visualized, it concerns the misdventures of two gumshoes Joe and Steve, Chinatown cab-drivers in search of the ever-elusive Chan Hong. With a variety of hilarious jokes, looks into Chinese-American culture, and witty anecdotal substance, Chan Is Missing is a classic film, infusing a tradition of mystery and drama into Asian American narrative.

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.

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.