Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Chan Is Missing (1981)

Director: Wayne Wang

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

A raunchy, sprawling and completely unpredictable panorama of the Chinese-American experience, which opens with Hong Kong pop star Sam Hui's Cantonese version of 'Rock Around the Clock' on the sound-track (he has turned it into a kind of inflation blues, lamenting the rising cost of rice). The plot, such as it is, kicks off with the disappearance of one Chan Hung; the problem is that he had $4,000 in his pocket, belonging to Jo and Steve, two Chinese cab-drivers. Their search for Chan takes them to the heart of the fortune cookie: the tensions between Chinese and American identity (especially when there's a generation gap, as there is between Jo and Steve), the chasm between ABCs (American-Born Chinese) and FOBs (Fresh Off the Boats), the clashes between PRC patriots and renegade Taiwan loyalists... It is sometimes wildly comic, sometimes melancholy, sometimes suspenseful and often strangely touching. The missing Chan - almost certainly a descendant of Charlie Chan, but also a cypher for 'CHinese-americAN' - never turns up, although the missing money does. But the search is the thing, and it goes round all the Chinatown corners you never dared explore for yourself.

Author: TR 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Wayne Wang

Producer: Wayne Wang

Cast: Wood Moy, Marc Hayashi, Laureen Chew, Judi Nihei, Peter Wang full cast

Duration: 80 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.