Cast:
Wood Moy (Jo), Marc Hayashi (Steve), Laureen Chew (Amy), Peter Wang (Henry), Presco Tabios (Presco), Frankie Alarcon (Frankie), Judi Nihei (Lawer), Ellen Yeung (Mrs. Chan), and George Woo (George) Directed by Wayne Wang.
Review:
"I was always trying to do something that was different. I want to go back and do something where I can unlearn everything that I learned. I always tell film students that everything you learn might be helpful, but, in the end, you want to unlearn all of that and just trust your instincts and make the film you wanna make."
Well, I suppose it helps to understand the perspective that comes with a director's upbringing for certain movies. Wayne Wang was born and raised in Hong Kong and his parents (who had escaped from China after the war) aimed for him to go to America to study and prepare for medical school (the unrest in Hong Kong in 1967 did not help matters) by going to Foothill College. While he lived with a Quaker family, they actually had a radical interest in the burgeoning counterculture that left an impression on him. Combined with having a class involving art history, Wang found himself wanting to become involved in the arts which led to him studying at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. He thought about majoring in painting but soon changed his major to film because UC Berkley's Pacific Film Archive came into focus to help him get more absorbed into film. After graduate school, he went back to Hong Kong and worked a while at a station that didn't exactly gel with his new-found ideas about film. At any rate, he went back to the Bay Area and became involved in the local Asian filmmaking community while also teaching English at a Chinese language center. In 1975, he worked with Rick Schmidt on a low budget drama called A Man, a Woman, and a Killer that he co-wrote and co-directed that came and went to little fanfare. Chan is Missing (1982) ended up being his breakthrough film onto a career of over four decades. Over the prevailing years, Wang has made a variety of films in and out of the system ranging from Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985), The Joy Luck Club (1993), The Center of the World (2001), Maid in Manhattan (2002) and his most recent film, Coming Home Again (2019).
With this film, Wang wrote the script alongside Issac Cronin and Terrel Seltzer (who essentially aided in the narration, they did not write dialogue) that came from the experiences that Wang had involving the center alongside his experiences seeing his elder brother try to cope with living with the high-strung nature of America*. Featuring a mix of professional actors and community folks, the film was shot all around Chinatown over the course of ten weekends (a list of locations utilized for the film can be seen in this link). The result was a festival hit that received considerable distribution that was considered noteworthy given its Chinese American director. In fairness, the ambiguity and playing with the genres of the mystery noir with its own humor about where it lies with in Chinatown is the point. Wang shot the film with an intention of "evolution of the Chinese written word in mind", which basically meant the movie became what it was after plenty of time in the editing room (apparently Wang spent two years editing). You've got a structure that is then expanded upon with some improv (as aided by the Asian American Theater Company) and a mix of English, Mandarin, and Cantonese to go with songs that were chosen for what one would hear going down Chinatown such as "Grant Avenue" or “Sabor a Mí”. It is a light affair at 76 minutes that borders on a travelogue (hey at least it isn't the scenic route) you might see on television with where it comes and goes with a mostly committed Moy and Hayashi along the way that sees plenty of varying leads about a mystery that isn't really a mystery at all. The film, possibly like the Asian American experience, isn't exactly something you can peg down as one thing, which I suppose is more effective and curious for some. As a whole, Chan is Missing is a decent movie, managing to have a playful energy that can be worth your interest if you understand what you're getting into with the nature of perceptions in culture that can crisscross for whatever type of effect is possible. You just might encounter something you didn't expect with this movie, for better or worse.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
*Tragically, his brother suffered from schizophrenia.
*Apparently, the movie is available on YouTube: A MAN, A WOMAN, AND A KILLER (77 min., ©1975). Directed by Wayne Wang and Rick Schmidt.
