Editing Chan Is Missing

{{Short description|1982 film by Wayne Wang}}
{{Use American English|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2016}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Chan Is Missing
| image          = Chan-is-missing-poster.jpg
| alt            = 
| caption        = Film poster
| director       = [[Wayne Wang]]
| producer       = Wayne Wang
| writer         = {{Plainlist|
* Isaac Cronin
* Terrel Seltzer
* Wayne Wang
}}
| starring       = {{Plainlist|
* [[Wood Moy]]
* [[Marc Hayashi]]
* [[Laureen Chew]]
}}
| music          = Robert Kikuchi-Yngojo
| cinematography = Michael Chin
| editing        = Wayne Wang
| studio         = Wayne Wang Productions<ref name="afi">{{cite web|url=https://catalog.afi.com/Film/68147-CHAN-ISMISSING?sid=2510411c-4160-4664-b857-4aba6571dda5&sr=12.705952&cp=1&pos=0|publisher=[[American Film Institute]]|title=Chan is Missing (1982)|accessdate=August 23, 2021}}</ref>
| distributor    = [[New Yorker Films]]
|gross = $1.1 million<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/americanfilmdist0000dona/page/59/mode/1up|title= American film distribution : the changing marketplace|last=Donahue|first= Suzanne Mary|year=1987 |publisher=UMI Research Press |page=59|isbn= 978-0-8357-1776-2}} Please note figures are for rentals in US and Canada</ref>
| released       = {{Film date|1982|04|24|[[Museum of Modern Art]]|1982|06|04|U.S.}}
| runtime        = 76 minutes<!--Theatrical runtime: 76:23--><ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/chan-missing-1970-2 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161009180003/http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/chan-missing-1970-2 | url-status=dead | archive-date=October 9, 2016 | title=''Chan Is Missing'' (15) | publisher=[[British Board of Film Classification]] | date=August 1, 1986 | access-date=October 7, 2016}}</ref>
| language       = {{Plainlist|
* English
* Cantonese
* Mandarin
}}
| budget         = $22,000<ref name="The New York Times">{{cite news|title=Wayne Wang -- He Made The Year's Unlikeliest Hit: Wayne Wang|author=TONY CHIU|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=May 30, 1982|page=D17}}</ref>
}}
[[File:Wayne Wang, SF 1980 during interview.jpg|thumb|upright|Film director Wayne Wang, 1980]]
[[File:Woody Moy, actor.jpg|thumb|upright|Actor Wood Moy, 1981]]

'''''Chan Is Missing''''' is a 1982 American [[Independent film|independent]] [[comedy-drama]] film directed, co-written, produced  and edited by [[Wayne Wang]]. It is his solo directorial debut. The film, which is shot in [[Black and white|black-and-white]], is plotted as a [[Mystery fiction|mystery]] with [[Film noir|noir]] undertones, and its title is a play on the [[Charlie Chan]] film series, which focuses on a fictional Chinese immigrant detective in Honolulu. It is widely recognized as the first [[Asian-American]] feature narrative film to gain both theatrical distribution and critical acclaim outside of the Asian American community.<ref>Xing, Jun. [https://books.google.com/books?id=NzRVDSPlAXIC&dq=%22first%20asian%20american%22%20%20%22Chan%20is%20missing%22&pg=PA46 ''Asian American Through The Lens'']. Alta Mira Press, 1998, p. 46.</ref>

''Chan Is Missing'' turns the Charlie Chan detective trope on its head by making "Chan" the missing person that the film's two protagonists, Jo ([[Wood Moy]]) and Steve ([[Marc Hayashi]]), search for. In the process of trying to locate Chan, a fractured, even contradictory portrait of him emerges, mirroring the complexities of the polyglot Chinese American community that Chan's character allegorizes.

In 1995, ''Chan Is Missing'' was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Complete National Film Registry Listing |url=https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/complete-national-film-registry-listing/ |access-date=2020-09-18 |website=Library of Congress}}</ref>

==Plot==
Jo is a taxi driver in [[Chinatown, San Francisco]] who, with his nephew Steve, is seeking to purchase a cab license. Jo's friend Chan Hung was the go-between for the transaction but has disappeared, taking Jo's money. The two men search for Chan by speaking with various Chinatown locals, each of whom has a different impression of Chan's personality and motivations. The portrait that is created is incomplete and, at times, contradictory.

As the mystery behind Chan's disappearance deepens, Jo becomes paranoid that Chan may be involved in the death of a man killed during a "flag-waving incident" between opposing supporters of the [[People's Republic of China]] (mainland China) and the [[Republic of China]] (Taiwan).

In the end, Chan remains missing but, through his daughter, returns Jo and Steve's money. Jo, holding a photo of Chan where his face is completely obscured, eventually accepts that Chan is an enigma, saying in a voiceover, "here's a picture of Chan Hung but I still can't see him."<ref name="Wang, Wayne">{{cite book|last1=Wang|first1=Wayne|title=Chan Is Missing|date=1984|publisher=Bamboo Ridge Press}}</ref>

== Cast ==
{{castlist|
* [[Wood Moy]] as Jo
* [[Marc Hayashi]] as Steve
* [[Laureen Chew]] as Amy
* [[Peter Wang]] as Henry
* Presco Tabios as Presco
* Frankie Alarcon as Frankie
* Judi Nihei as Lawer
* Ellen Yeung as Mrs. Chan
* George Woo as George
* Emily Woo Yamasaki as Jenny
* Virginia Cerenio as Jenny's Friend
* Roy Chan as Mr. Lee
* Leong Pui Chee as Mr. Fong
}}
[[File:Wongchee1.jpg|thumb|left|"Chan is Missing" still photos of actors Wood Moy (Jo), Marc Hayashi (Steve) and Peter Wang as Henry, the cook singing "Fry me to the Moon" in Wayne Wang's 1982 film..]]
{{small|Source:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chan is missing |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2001635008/ |access-date=2024-02-25 |website=Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA}}</ref>}}

==Themes and analysis==
'''Chinese America and absence'''

The absence, ambiguity, and lack of definite character in the film are central themes in ''Chan Is Missing'', and reflect how the film takes on the challenge of being an early Chinese/Asian American feature narrative. ''Chan Is Missing'' is able to use the absence of Chan to fill that space with a series of a broad and complicated portrait of San Francisco's Chinese American community. According to Diane Mei Lin Mark, who wrote the framing essay for the movie's published screenplay, "this very presentation of diversity among Chinese American characters in a film is a concept largely untested in American movies."<ref name="Wang, Wayne"/> The diversity is addressed in the film in at least two ways. First, there is Chan himself, who every character seems to have a different impression of. In a voiceover monologue at the end of the film, Jo explains, "Steve thinks that Chan Hung is slow-witted, but sly when it comes to money. Jenny thinks that her father is honest and trustworthy. Mrs. Chan thinks her husband is a failure because he isn't rich. Amy thinks he's a hard-headed political activist...Presco thinks he's an eccentric who likes mariachi music."<ref name="Wang, Wayne"/> Chan, it would seem, is meant to stand in for the Chinese American community as a whole.

Second, there is also an eclectic cast of other Chinese American characters that Steve and Jo encounter while looking for Chan. That includes Henry, the cook, who wears a Samurai Night Fever T-shirt while singing "Fry Me to the Moon" as he stir-fries in the kitchen. Both Chan and the film's characters suggest that Chinese America, is also impossible to easily summarize or characterize.

Film scholar Peter Feng suggests that ''Chan Is Missing'' can be understood via the metaphor of a doughnut: "Each character...holds a doughnut that contains the possibilities of for Chinese American identity in its center. Each of the film's characters only serve to widen that hole, thus widening the space for spectatorial subjectivity and by extension, Asian American subjectivity."<ref name="Feng"/>
[[File:CHANISMISSING1981SF.tif|thumb|Wayne Wang discusses a scene with Wood Moy (Jo), Peter Wang (Henry) and Marc Hayashi (Steve).]]
[[File:Chan is missing t shirt, 1982.jpg|thumb|Cast/Crew t-shirt after making 1982 film.]]
'''Sound and language'''

Sound is strategically deployed throughout the film to enhance the atmosphere. As Jo begins to suspect that Chan might be involved in a murder cover-up, Jo's paranoia is echoed through an explicitly ominous score. There is also a scene where Jo and Steve go to the Manilatown Center, and during their conversation with a Center employee (Presco), the camera moves from the men to focusing on a loudspeaker and loud, ambient noise in the scene obscures their conversation. This un-joining of the speaker and subject leaves the viewer disoriented, which only adds to the general mystery of the film and its plot. A similar scene happens when Jo speaks with Chan's wife and her home and loud music is also used to obscure their conversation.

In the original theatrical version of ''Chan Is Missing'', there are no subtitles provided for scenes where characters are either speaking in Mandarin or Cantonese. This is a common technique in Wang's film. As he told an interviewer regarding his 2008 film, ''[[A Thousand Years of Good Prayers]]'', "I didn’t want subtitles because the audience should experience what those two are experiencing and not have any more information. Yet you could still understand. Sometimes the specifics of a language are not as important as the music of the language and the body language of the language.'<ref>{{cite web|last1=Esther|first1=John|title=EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: WAYNE WANG|url=http://jestherent.blogspot.com/2008/10/interview-wayne-wang.html|website=Jesther Entertainment|access-date=3 October 2015}}</ref>

==Release==
Wayne Wang's primary distribution goal was to have the film, "play at festivals and college campuses", and as one of the first Asian American feature films, audience reactions to it spanned a spectrum of responses, sometimes dependent on the ethnicity of the viewer. One Chinese American viewer claimed the movie was written for a white audience because "…there being so much explaining, so many footnotes..." says Lem. Also according to Sterrit we see that "…its initial audience has not been an ethnic one, Chinese viewers are being wooed through newspaper ads…" Furthermore, the Asians were ‘wooed’ to watch the film by the white reviewers who reviewed the movie in the Asian press, therefore raising questions about whom the film catered to. Peter X Feng believes the success of this movie was through "the art-house audiences and brought the Asian Americans into the theaters." He also states that "reviews in the Asian American press often simply advertise the screenings; but the lengthier reviews usually refer to how white reviewers see Chinese Americans and how Asian American texts are received by non-Asian audiences."<ref name="Feng">[https://www.jstor.org/stable/1225719 "Becoming Chinese American, Becoming Asian American: Chan is Missing"]. Retrieved 2014-12-14</ref>

Wang arranged for the film to be screened at the [[Museum of Modern Art]] (MoMA) where it premiered as part of the New Directors/New Films series on April 24, 1982.<ref name="afi" />

==Critical reception==
''Chan is Missing'' is highly acclaimed. On [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film has an approval rating of 96% based on 49 reviews with the consensus: "An entertaining mystery that's also rich in setting and character detail, ''Chan is Missing'' suggests thrilling potential from director/co-writer Wayne Wang."<ref>{{cite web |title=Chan Is Missing (1982) |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chan_is_missing |website=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |access-date=2021-05-19 }}</ref>

Roger Ebert of the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'' awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars and wrote that the film is "whimsical treasure of a film that gives us a real feeling for the people of San Francisco's Chinatown" and it "has already become something of a legend because of the way it was filmed" that it demonstrates a "warm, low-key, affectionate and funny look at some real Chinese-Americans" and went to say "almost without realizing it, we are taken beyond the plot into the everyday lives of these people."<ref>{{cite web |date=1982 |author=Roger Ebert |author-link=Roger Ebert |title=Chan is Missing|url=http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/chan-is-missing-1982|publisher=Roger Ebert.com|access-date=25 March 2014}}</ref>

Vincent Canby of ''[[The New York Times]]'' said in his review that "Chan Is Missing is not only an appreciation of a way of life that few of us know anything about; it's a revelation of a marvelous, completely secure new talent."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1982/04/24/movies/chan-is-missing.html|title="Chan is Missing" in Chinatown|first=Vincent|last=Canby|work=[[The New York Times]]|date= April 24, 1982|access-date= 15 May 2018}}</ref>

A review by Dennis Schwartz stated that, "It's breezy and warmly done, a low-key comedy that takes you into an ethnic group that has rarely been captured on film in such a revealing way. A true Indy film, and a delight."<ref>{{cite web |title=CHAN IS MISSING – Dennis Schwartz Reviews |date=August 5, 2019 |url=https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/chanismissing/ }}</ref>

The film won 'Best Experimental/Independent Film' at the [[1982 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards]].<ref name="The New York Times" />

==Preservation==
In 1995, ''Chan Is Missing'' was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]] by the [[Library of Congress]] as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".<ref name=":0" />

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{IMDb title|id=0083728|title=Chan is Missing}}
* ''Chan is Missing'' essay by Daniel Eagan in America's Film Legacy: The Authoritative Guide to the Landmark Movies in the National Film Registry, A&C Black, 2010 {{ISBN|0826429777}}, pages 772-774 [https://books.google.com/books?id=deq3xI8OmCkC]

==Further reading==
* ''Chan Is Missing: A Film By Wayne Wang, With Introduction and Screen Notes by Diane Mei Lin Mark'' (Honolulu: [[Bamboo Ridge]] Press, 1984), {{ISBN|0-910043-06-X}}

{{Wayne Wang}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:1982 films]]
[[Category:1980s buddy comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:1980s crime comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:1980s English-language films]]
[[Category:1982 independent films]]
[[Category:American buddy comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:American crime comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:American detective films]]
[[Category:American independent films]]
[[Category:Chinatown, San Francisco in fiction]]
[[Category:Films about Chinese Americans]]
[[Category:Chinese-American history]]
[[Category:Chinese-American culture in San Francisco]]
[[Category:Films directed by Wayne Wang]]
[[Category:Films set in San Francisco]]
[[Category:Films shot in San Francisco]]
[[Category:United States National Film Registry films]]
[[Category:1982 comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:Films shot in 16 mm film]]
[[Category:Chinese-language American films]]
[[Category:1980s American films]]
[[Category:English-language crime comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:English-language independent films]]
[[Category:English-language buddy comedy-drama films]]
[[Category:Cantonese-language American films]]