Year: 1982
I'm long overdue on writing up my thoughts on this one; I have seen it several times and I enjoy it more and more with each viewing. Movies like "Chan" are the kind of movies I like the best. It is independent in spirit and doesn't set out to do too much. It's pretty rough around the edges--if you are worried about things like cohesion and technical excellence, this might not be the movie for you. It was made on a low budget (according to the New York Times, it cost $20,000 to produce) and it shows--although the black-and-white cinematography works perfectly in capturing the foggy mood of San Francisco. I just think it's great and after several viewings I am not bored and still manage to pick up various nuances or insights with each viewing.
The plot boils down to this: Two cabdrivers in Chinatown, amiable, goodhearted everyman Jo (Wood Moy) and his outgoing, glib nephew Steve (Marc Hayashi) want to go into business for themselves. They pool together $4,000 for a license and give the money to a fellow named Chan, who is going to broker the deal. However, Chan mysteriously goes missing, leaving Jo and Steve to go the gumshoe route and try and track down his whereabouts. That's basically it, but there is a larger subtext too--the plight of immigrants living in the United States.
The focus here is on Chinese in San Francisco and I think its important to note that a similar film would not have worked as well by focusing on another immigrant group. Specifically because, many Chinese who immigrated to the United States saw their lives take a dramatic downturn in terms of their station. Jo mentions for instance, that his friend Chan was the brains behind the creation of the first word processor in Chinese but has had trouble finding a decent job in the States. Jo himself is something of an electronics wiz--he uses his oven not for cooking but for storing gadgets--but instead is driving a cab. And even though Jo is an "ABC" (American Born Chinese), you still get the sense that his race his somehow played a part in his career path not being everything it might be. As one character says to Jo, "We've been here for 100 years. If they don't notice us now, they don't want to notice us."
Jo and Steve try and track down Chan by searching the neighborhood, following up leads and clues like a couple of PIs. They talk to anyone who might be able to help and the more information they get about Chan and his life, the more fuzzy the picture becomes. Everyone has a different take on Chan: His haughty ex-wife thinks he's a failure because he is not as successful as the family's sponsor while a young man who works at a senior center where Chan was known to hang out recalls his fondness for cookies and mariachi music. One theory is that Chan has possibly returned to Taiwan to settle a property dispute with his brother. More fantastically, it also emerges that Chan may have played a part in a New Year's Day parade scuffle between those loyal to Communist China and those in favor of Taiwanese independence that resulted in the shooting death of an elderly man by another, even more elderly man . Could Chan himself have pulled the trigger and the accused is merely taking the rap for him? It's all as clear as mud to Jo and Steve.
Frustrations and paranoia begin to mount. Steve wants to turn the matter over to the cops, while Jo keeps preaching patience. Jo, meanwhile, begins to feel like he's being followed as he finds himself being drawn deeper and deeper into the mystery. Tensions boil over in a scene where Jo and Steve argue; Jo says that he feels bad for Chan and can empathize with his struggle to cope, while Steve counters with the argument that everyone has their own identity regardless of where they are and what they do and wonders why Jo is "tripping so hard on this one dude." The mystery is never really resolved but the ending works well within the context of the movie. The lives of the immigrant communities are mysteries--because we don't take the time to see.
The best thing about this movie is the repartee between Jo and Steve. The dialogue is improvised and Jo and Steve have a natural affinity to pull this off. You really root for them and the scene where they argue almost hurts to watch, simply because they are so close and such good friends despite their age difference. The movie is very funny too. Steve acts like a goof a lot of the time and the other characters have their moments too. The best scene in the movie comes early, when an earnest young lawyer meets with Jo and Steve. She too is looking for Chan because he has missed his court date after a fender-bender. She goes into this long spiel about "cross-cultural misunderstandings" that have Jo and Steve rolling their eyes almost audibly. It's great fun. The characters are not stereotypes and that's another thing that makes the humor so effective. We are not laughing at them (except the lawyer, who is just too much). They're just everyday people trying to make it as best they can in a strange world.
Edit: Here is Rogert Ebert's review of "Chan is Missing," originally published in 1982.
"Chan is Missing" is a small, whimsical treasure of a film that gives us a real feeling for the people of San Francisco's Chinatown. And at some point while we're watching this film, we may realize that we have very little idea of Chinatowns, in San Francisco or elsewhere, that haven't been shaped by mass-produced Hollywood cliches like the Charlie Chan movies.
The title "Chan is Missing" is almost a pun, because Charlie Chan is missing from this film, and what replaces him is a warm, low-key, affectionate and funny look at some real Chinese-Americans.
The movie's plot is simplicity itself. The heroes of the film, two taxi drivers, go looking for Chan because he owes them some money and he has disappeared. They search for him more out of curiosity than vengeance; they don't really think he intended to steal the money, but they can't figure out why he would have disappeared without paying it. Familiar with the ways of Chinatown, they knock on doors and talk to people and, almost without realizing it, we are taken beyond the plot into the everyday lives of these people.
The movie has an unforced, affectionate sense of humor about its characters. There's a cheerfully cynical analysis of how the annual Chinese New Year's parade has been turned into a competition between factions loyal to Taiwan and to mainland China. There's a philosophical cook, whose resignation in the face of the inevitable sounds anything but resigned. There's a political activist who dissects the politics of Chinatown with a fine-tooth comb.
And there's a fascinating discussion involving linguistics, as a young sociology student tries to explain why Chan recently said "no" to a cop when he meant "yes." We can almost follow her logic: Chan was replying to the truth of his action rather than to the meaning of the question, you see, and so although his taxi did indeed go through the red light, he did not drive it through the red light but was, in a sense, a bystander in the driver's seat as the taxi autonomously violated the law. I'm making it sound complicated; the linguist makes it funny.
"Chan is Missing" has already become something of a legend because of the way it was filmed. The movie's director, producer, editor and co-author is a young filmmaker named Wayne Wang, a 33-year-old San Franciscan who made the movie on a $22,000 budget, with a little help from his friends. He wanted to examine the ways in which Chinatown was both Chinese and American and who would be better qualified to do that than a director whose last name is Chinese and whose first name was inspired by John Wayne?
Wang's plot owes a little to "The Third Man," I suppose, as his heroes question people about a man who is presumed missing and whose life turns out to be more complicated than anyone would have thought. But "Chan is Missing" isn't really a thriller or a whodunit and doesn't pretend to be. It's an excursion. It takes us through a part of America we haven't been able to see before in the movies. It takes us into the kitchens of Chinese restaurants, and into the offices of Chinese-American social workers. It takes us into hotels for transients, sleazy bars and politician's offices.
By the time we've finished the odyssey, we realize a curious thing: There may not be a Chan, and it doesn't matter if he's missing. What's important is that everyone has a different idea of Chan, filtered through his own consciousness. And we realize (for ourselves, because the film is never obvious about this point) that Chinese-Americans, more than many other ethnic groups in this country, are seen by the rest of us through a whole series of filters and fictions. We "know" them from movies and walk-ons in TV cop shows, from the romanticized images of fiction and from ubiquitous Chinese restaurants, but we don't really know them at all.
This movie knows them. In sharing its characters with us, it opens up a part of America.
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