Chan Is Missing (1982) on Netflix
Jo drives a taxi in San Francisco's Chinatown. He and his nephew Steve want to buy a cab license, but their go-between Chan Hung has vanished with Jo's money.
- Netflix4.2/5
- IMDb7.1/102,152 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes96%
Trailer
Plot summary
Chan Hung was a friend of Jo's, a taxi driver in San Francisco's Chinatown, and he agreed to handle the purchase of a cab license for Jo and Jo's nephew Steve. Chan has vanished, and so has Jo's money. The two men search for him by speaking with people around Chinatown, and each person gives a different account of him. Chan's wife considers her husband a failure because he is not rich, while his daughter Jenny believes him honest and trustworthy. Amy describes him as a hard-headed political activist; Presco, at the Manilatown Center, recalls an eccentric who likes mariachi music. Steve finds Chan slow-witted but sly about money.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Chan Is Missing (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Chan Is Missing 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.
- The original theatrical version of Chan Is Missing carries no subtitles for scenes where characters speak Mandarin or Cantonese, a technique its director Wayne Wang used throughout his films.
- In 1995 the Library of Congress selected Chan Is Missing for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, citing it as culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.
- Wayne Wang said in a 2022 interview that his experiences with his older brother, who dealt with schizophrenia when living in America, played a distinct role in influencing Chan Is Missing, albeit from a distance.
- In the scene where Jo and Steve visit the Manilatown Center, the camera moves from the men to a loudspeaker while loud ambient noise obscures their conversation; loud music similarly obscures Jo's talk with Chan's wife.
