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Visual Communications Film Festival opens this year with Wayne Wang's groundbreaking indie film, "Chan is Missing."
Chan Is Not The Only One Who's Missing
As two Chinese-American born cab drivers search for their friend, Chan Hung, in Wayne Wang's "Chan is Missing," viewers are left on a search of their own.
This year's Visual Communications Film Festival celebrates its 20th birthday with the opening night screening of Wayne Wang's (The Joy Luck Club, Chinese Box, Maid in Manhattan, etc.) indie classic, Chan is Missing. This 1981 groundbreaking docu-drama is a cinematic exhibition of Wang's artistic vision, creativity, and self-expression. Chan is Missing serves as an experimental palette where Wang injects brains, wit, and great acting into a full-fledged independent film.
Shot on 16mm and filmed in black and white, Chan is Missing has a truly touching veritable documentary effect. Without color to serve as a visual distraction, viewers have no trouble finding themselves instantly drawn to the powerful story line.
Chan is Missing is the story of Jo (Wood Moy) and Steve (Marc Hayashi), two Chinese-American born cab drivers who undergo a strenuous search for Chan Hung, a friend who has gone missing with $4000 loaned to him. As Jo and Steve wander the streets of San Francisco’s Chinatown looking for Chan and following his trails, they find themselves enveloped in the power of storytelling with various characters offering their stories and reflections on life.
Throughout the film, viewers are visually treated to stylistic snapshots of Asian American life. From the bitter foul mouthed chef from China who discusses issues of unemployment and his distaste for Chinese fast food requests to the Filipino-American retirement home employee who speaks of soul searching to the ESL school principal who reflects on acculturation issues through an apple pie analogy.
Chan is Missing effortlessly handles a culturally moving story that explores themes of alienation and loneliness. Absent are the traditionally stereotypical roles of the martial artist, doctor, or nerd. Instead we are treated with attempts at subverting mainstream stereotypes of Asian American media representation. Wang made sure his film was couched in non-stereotypical terms with accent-free Asians taking lead roles and characters depicted as diverse individuals who don't always succumb to the model minority.
Simple camera techniques like the close ups of actors remind us that this is a story about life and all its ordinariness. We realize that as all the character stories unfold, we end up with nothing more than ordinary Asian Americans living in displacement and alienation. Most of these characters feel the weight of their cultural baggage with the “forever foreigner" concept subtly hovering over them.
These slippery issues are addressed by Wang's solution-free story. Viewers find themselves caught up in the same situation as when the film first opened, that is, looking for Chan - and perhaps in the process of this endless search, contemplating their own identities. But through all the wanderings, searches, and stories, one thing is for sure: no one can tell us who we are; it is up to us to figure that out for ourselves. Asian Americans are constantly on a self-search, struggling to bring meaning to life in a place where we call “home." In the end, like Chan and most of the characters in the film, we are in a sense missing, too.
It is obvious that with this film, Wang is taking a stab at broadening the Asian American image, and he does so humorously and effectively. With that much said, the VC Film Festival could not have opened up with a more deserving film to commemorate its 20 years of existence.
www.vconline.org/ff04/chan.html
Date Posted: 5/7/2004