Directed by Wayne Wang
Written by Isaac Cronin and Wayne Wang
1982/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/YouTube rental
Jo: This mystery is appropriately Chinese: what’s not there seems to have just as much meaning as what is there.
The first Asian-American film to receive theatrical distribution in the U.S. is this very quirky “mystery”.
The plot is a premise to hang everything more important on. The setting is San Francisco’s Chinatown. Jo and Steve are a father and son duo who want to start driving a taxicab. They need to sublease a license from an established independent operator. They entrusted $4,000 to one Chan Hung to complete the deal. Now Chan has been missing, along with their money, for days.
The two seek him everywhere in Chinatown. Each of their leads has a different opinion of Chan’s character and a different theory of where he might have gone. People discuss a dispute between carriers of the mainland and Taiwan flags in a parade. There is also quite a bit of lighthearted philosophizing about the differences in Eastern and Western thinking. This is accompanied by a lot of humor.
This is a charming film, something along the lines of an early Jim Jarmusch. The amateur acting doesn’t hurt it much. It was clearly made on a shoestring budget but revealed a considerable amount of talent.
The music is used as part of the soundtrack
