Chan is Missing

So I finally watched the film Chan is Missing from CCA's own, Wayne Wang, and I regret having waited so long. This movie makes me want to watch more movies (though I am hesitant to call it a movie and am more inclined to call it a film, as if there was a difference...). At a time in which big time blockbusters and 3-D effects dominate the box office, this film serves as a reminder that you don't need much to tell a story. Made on a budget of just $20,000--12,000 times less than that of Avatar--the film was far ahead of its time and is still far ahead of ours.

On the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown and its surrounding areas (of course we had to make an exception for the bridge), two taxi cab drivers--Jo and his nephew Steve--go on a search for a missing man, Chan Hung, hoping to track down their missing cash. The simple storyline to Wang's insert into film noir is irrelevant, as it is used simply as a tool in Wang's attempt to paint a representative portrait of Chinese Americans in San Francisco. Wang had a message and a mission, which he accomplished with a handful of amateur Asian American actors/actresses, a cheap camera, and a beautiful city.

Who is Chan and where is he? There is no Chan. Chan is an embodiment of the identities and potential identities that most chinese americans have battling within themselves at some point in their lives. Chan is every societal stereotype and every example that disproves each of those stereotypes.

"I've already given up on finding out what really happened to Chan Hung, but what bothers me is that I no longer know who Chan Hung really is. Mr. Lee says Chan Hung and immigrants like him need to be taught everything as if they were children...Mr. Fong thinks anyone who can invent the first word processing system in Chinese is a genius...George thinks Chan Hung is too Chinese and unwilling to change...Presco thinks hes an eccentric who loves mariachi music..."

Chan himself is a contradiction. There is no Chan. There is no "authentic" Chinese American identity. The true topic at hand: What is Asian American? Am I it? Do I want to be it? Though it was made specifically about the Chinese American Community, Wang's piece addresses the questions bobbing in the minds of every young Asian American since before the disco '70s--during which the movie was filmed--to the current "hip hop generation," with a simple answer: yes. You are It. You are the one defining the culture and mapping the identity, placing meaning to the term Asian American with each action, decision, thought, and preference. With each dim sum luncheon and hip hop concert. Each hong kong shoot-out and tarantino slaughterfest. Stop searching for that "true" identity. Stop searching for Chan because there is no Chan. He started off as a yellowface caricature and grew into an art-loving, tribe-called-quest-bumpin' hip hop connoisseur, a wine-drinking socialite, a tight-jeaned rockstar, a doctor, an artist, an accountant...a cloud of confusion. He stands for everything an Asian American could be, but nothing an Asian American has to be. He is Chan and he is missing because he doesn't exist.

Confirmation from Mr. Wood Moy himself: