Chan Is Missing (1982)
March 4, 2024 8:02 PM - Subscribe
Two cab drivers search San Francisco's Chinatown for the mysterious Chan, who disappeared with their $4000.
In this understated comedy from director Wayne Wang, Jo (Wood Moy), a cab driver in San Francisco's Chinatown, and his nephew, Steve (Marc Hayashi), have placed their combined savings into the hands of the shady and mysterious Chan. When this unreliable holder of their funds disappears, Jo and Steve become amateur investigators and attempt to track him down, meeting with resistance -- and plenty of humorous characters and situations -- along the way.
Olivia Popp: What unfolds across the film becomes a beautiful depiction of the heterogeneity of Chinatown, questions about the innate tensions that exist within the community, and an interrogation of identity beyond what it “means” to be Chinese in the United States.
Although it is impossible to explore every unitary nuance embedded in “Chan is Missing,” a few elements stand out. In particular, the movie's intimacies are revealed in accents, linguistic choices, and how they pronounce names. The light tonal shifts in Jo's words juxtaposed is different from Steve's archetypically American lilt, just as they are both different from cook Henry's (Peter Wang) raging mainland Chinese accent when speaking in Chinese and his natural tendency to bilingually blend Chinese and English. Although they can understand each other, they can't always understand each other. This very difference alludes to the untranslatability between generations, lost in the subtleties that floated away with the decaying transmittance of accent and language between kin. The comfort in which characters navigate the hazy Chinatown restaurants normalizes a world in which they breathe a life that them and their ancestors have together created, a nod to Henry's comment that the Chinese have been in the United States for over a century, yet are still grappling with this seemingly superficial issue of identity thrust upon them.
Madeline Hsu: The 1970s witnessed a reinvigorated Chinatown, with the civil rights movement and new waves of American-born advocates and new immigrants adding to the agitation of community rights groups. Through a cacophony of dialects, accents, and background noises, Wang skillfully shows that the earlier film hero Charlie Chan does not represent Chinese America in the 1970s. Wang obscures his subjects by shooting at angles and through windows even as he offers glimpses into a richly textured community framed by competing divides of generations and genders: American-born and immigrants; leftists and rightists; business successes, community activists, and the striving working-classes. Joe and Steve’s banter captures not just their strategizing about how and where to find Chan, but also whether and how Chinese can claim a place in America. If a man of Chan’s abilities and character seems to have fled the United States, what of those with less promise?
Vincent Canby: ''Chan Is Missing'' is a very funny movie, but it's not a spoof of its characters or even of its so-called ''mystery,'' which, like everything else in the film, is used to illustrate the film's quite serious concerns. These are identity, assimilation, linguistics and what one hilariously earnest young woman, describing Chan's argument with the traffic cop, defines as ''cross-cultural misunderstandings.''
''Chan Is Missing'' is not only an appreciation of a way of life that few of us know anything about; it's a revelation of a marvelous, completely secure new talent.
Trailer
In this understated comedy from director Wayne Wang, Jo (Wood Moy), a cab driver in San Francisco's Chinatown, and his nephew, Steve (Marc Hayashi), have placed their combined savings into the hands of the shady and mysterious Chan. When this unreliable holder of their funds disappears, Jo and Steve become amateur investigators and attempt to track him down, meeting with resistance -- and plenty of humorous characters and situations -- along the way.
Olivia Popp: What unfolds across the film becomes a beautiful depiction of the heterogeneity of Chinatown, questions about the innate tensions that exist within the community, and an interrogation of identity beyond what it “means” to be Chinese in the United States.
Although it is impossible to explore every unitary nuance embedded in “Chan is Missing,” a few elements stand out. In particular, the movie's intimacies are revealed in accents, linguistic choices, and how they pronounce names. The light tonal shifts in Jo's words juxtaposed is different from Steve's archetypically American lilt, just as they are both different from cook Henry's (Peter Wang) raging mainland Chinese accent when speaking in Chinese and his natural tendency to bilingually blend Chinese and English. Although they can understand each other, they can't always understand each other. This very difference alludes to the untranslatability between generations, lost in the subtleties that floated away with the decaying transmittance of accent and language between kin. The comfort in which characters navigate the hazy Chinatown restaurants normalizes a world in which they breathe a life that them and their ancestors have together created, a nod to Henry's comment that the Chinese have been in the United States for over a century, yet are still grappling with this seemingly superficial issue of identity thrust upon them.
Madeline Hsu: The 1970s witnessed a reinvigorated Chinatown, with the civil rights movement and new waves of American-born advocates and new immigrants adding to the agitation of community rights groups. Through a cacophony of dialects, accents, and background noises, Wang skillfully shows that the earlier film hero Charlie Chan does not represent Chinese America in the 1970s. Wang obscures his subjects by shooting at angles and through windows even as he offers glimpses into a richly textured community framed by competing divides of generations and genders: American-born and immigrants; leftists and rightists; business successes, community activists, and the striving working-classes. Joe and Steve’s banter captures not just their strategizing about how and where to find Chan, but also whether and how Chinese can claim a place in America. If a man of Chan’s abilities and character seems to have fled the United States, what of those with less promise?
Vincent Canby: ''Chan Is Missing'' is a very funny movie, but it's not a spoof of its characters or even of its so-called ''mystery,'' which, like everything else in the film, is used to illustrate the film's quite serious concerns. These are identity, assimilation, linguistics and what one hilariously earnest young woman, describing Chan's argument with the traffic cop, defines as ''cross-cultural misunderstandings.''
''Chan Is Missing'' is not only an appreciation of a way of life that few of us know anything about; it's a revelation of a marvelous, completely secure new talent.
Trailer
Chan is Missing is probably the most authentic depiction of a particular milieu of being Chinese American I've seen (that's including Wang's own Joy Luck Club). The characters are my cousins/uncles etc. At the risk of dooming the upload with a shelf life, I'll note the full thing is up on youtube.
posted by juv3nal at 8:50 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
posted by juv3nal at 8:50 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
Heh, I was dragged to see this at age 11 by my parents who didn't really get that I might want to see different movies than them. I watched it later as an adult and appreciated it, glad to see it's getting attention here.
posted by Melismata at 3:00 PM on March 15
posted by Melismata at 3:00 PM on March 15
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posted by Carillon at 8:04 PM on March 4 [2 favorites]