Blu-ray Review: Wayne Wang’s Chan Is Missing on the Criterion Collection

In Wayne Wang’s Chan Is Missing, two cabbies, Jo (Wood Moy) and Steve (Marc Hayashi), roam the streets of San Francisco, on the hunt for their missing business partner, who owes them each $4,000. Despite the film’s title and Jo and Steve’s extensive search for Chan, which also serves as a catalyst for a fascinating travelogue through the city’s Chinatown district, Chan Is Missing’s main concern is rarely the mystery of where Chan actually is. It is, instead, ultimately about who he is—something which the film constantly reevaluates and playfully obscures—and, in turn, what that has to say about Chinese American identity.

Jo and Steve are the comically mismatched duo at the center of the film, with the former being considerably older, shorter, and wiser than the latter, and his more traditionally Chinese dry sense of humor doesn’t always jive with Steve’s more American brand of sarcasm. Throughout Chan Is Missing, Wang also uses the generation gap between the two as a means of shedding light on the cultural differences between more Americanized youth and their elders, like Chan and Jo. But it’s as the pair come into contact with a variety of people who knew Chan that a more prismatic portrait of Chinese Americans begins to arise.

With each new person we meet and new fact that we learn about Chan, we see a different side of this complex community. Some people in the community think of Chan as a successful inventor in China, while his lawyer, Mr. Lee (Roy Chan), lumps him in with his shady hit-and-run clients. Steve complains of Chan’s lack of humor and his “fresh off the boat” tendencies, while Jo points out, in voiceover, that Chan often played up these aspects simply to annoy Steve. Chan is even an avowed Chinese nationalist, who may or may not have killed a pro-Taiwan protester, yet he left China for America with hopes of a better life.

These various perspectives and internal contradictions all contribute to Chan’s unknowability, suggesting that he, like the entirety of the Chinese American community, contains multitudes. Late in the film, Jo remarks that “this mystery is appropriately Chinese” and that “what’s not there seems to have just as much meaning as what is there.” It’s fitting, then, that not only do we not really learn who Chan really is, but also that Jo and Steve never find him.

Chan remains an enigma, representative of something different to everyone who knows him—or, at least, knows of him. But in Jo and Steve’s often aimless and humorous journey throughout the city, Wang slyly uses the cryptic nature of his central yet entirely absent character as a means of reflecting the many shades of Chinese American identity, which is presented as equally diverse as the American communities they live alongside.

Image/Sound

Considering the film’s modest budget, Criterion’s transfer of an HD digital master looks fantastic, with nice grain distribution and a strong contrast that highlights the rough-and-tumble beauty of the black-and-white cinematography. Occasional shots show slight damage or are a tad blurry, but the latter is likely a result of the film’s run-and-gun location shooting rather than any flaw in the transfer. Otherwise, the image is sharp and rich in detail, and the uncompressed mono audio presents perfectly clean dialogue and an effective yet unobtrusive layering of the many ambient sounds from the Chinatown locations.

Extras

Criterion’s release comes with three enlightening new interviews with Wayne Wang. Critic Hua Hsu touches on Wang’s early life, from his moving to San Francisco at the height of the 1960s countercultural movement, to his art school days that eventually led him to the cinema. In his interview with Wang, director Ang Lee discusses their Hollywood careers and how Wang’s Chinese American heritage influenced how he wanted to represent Chinatown. In the final interview, critic Dennis Lim delves into Wang’s influences, especially Godard and Ozu, and how they’re impact can be felt throughout his filmography.

The final disc feature is Debbie Lum’s 2005 short documentary Is Chan Still Missing?, which gives the spotlight to actors Wood Moy and Marc Hayashi, who talk about their work in experimental Chinese American theater and how their paths crossed with Wang. The package is rounded out with a foldout booklet with an essay by critic Oliver Wang, who perceptively examines Wayne Wang’s fusion of cultural elements and experimental film techniques.

Overall

Wayne Wang’s playfully enigmatic debut was a watershed for Asian American filmmakers, and it receives a handsome package that contextualizes its place in ’80s American indie cinema.