A “meta” detective series in which a struggling Asian waiter becomes the unlikely hero of a police procedural-style criminal conspiracy, Interior Chinatown satirizes Hollywood’s stereotypical treatment of minorities — while also nodding to the progress the industry has belatedly made.
The new show, out on Disney-owned Hulu next Tuesday, is based on the critically adored novel by US author Charles Yu (游朝凱), who is of Taiwanese descent.
Yu’s 2020 bestseller delivered a humorous takedown of racism in US society through the adventures of Willis Wu, a Hollywood extra reduced to playing roles like “Background Oriental Male” but who dreams of one day being promoted to “Kung Fu Guy.”
Photo: AFP
Yu now serves as the TV series’ creator and showrunner.
“I grew up watching TV in the ‘80s and ‘90s, and I just never saw Asians on TV. It’s as if they didn’t exist,” he told a press conference in July. “They existed in real life when I’d go outside, but they weren’t somehow in my screen. And so, that sort of shaped me in wanting to tell this story.”
Even a decade ago, Yu’s literary creation would likely have been ignored by Hollywood.
Photo: AP
But in recent years, breakout successes for Asian American productions like Crazy Rich Asians and Everything Everywhere All At Once, not to mention South Korean hits Parasite and Squid Game, have proven the commercial appetite for diverse storytelling.
Hong Kong-born US actor Jimmy O. Yang (歐陽萬成), who appeared in Crazy Rich Asians, stars as Wu in Interior Chinatown.
Oscar-winning New Zealand filmmaker Taika Waititi (Jojo Rabbit) directs the pilot episode.
Photo: Bloomberg
‘METAPHOR’
Viewers are introduced to Wu as an ordinary waiter at a restaurant in Los Angeles’s Chinatown — but quickly find out that he also appears to reside within a police procedural.
In these scenes, Interior Chinatown adopts the visual codes and tropes of a TV cop drama. Wu is relegated to a background character role, as the series’ Black and white cop duo solve crimes.
Even more strangely, unexplained cameras are shown filming Wu and his colleagues, reminiscent of “The Truman Show.”
The distortion of reality echoes the premise of the original novel, which was itself written in the form of a television screenplay.
“It’s such a great metaphor for what it means to be Asian American in this country,” said Yang.
“But at the same time, it’s a universal story of someone longing to be more, someone finding themselves in their career.”
When Wu witnesses a kidnapping, twists and turns see this background actor take on increasingly important roles in the narrative of a criminal intrigue. “He moves on to be kind of like a guest star. And then the tech guy, which, of course, I played before. So it really drew a lot of parallels to my own career,” said Yang.
‘MIND BENDING’
The series blends English, Mandarin and Cantonese dialogue.
Among its characters is Lana Lee, a mixed-race novice cop, who is assigned a case in Chinatown by superiors who incorrectly assume that she must know her way around the Asian neighborhood.
The irony was not lost on actress Chloe Bennet, born Chloe Wang to a Chinese father and white American mother, who in real life had to change her last name in order to land roles in Hollywood.
“My journey through the industry is so meta for Lana,” she told the press conference. “I literally was told at the beginning of my career... ‘You’re just not white enough to be the lead, but you’re not Asian enough to be the Asian.’”
Wu’s best friend Fatty Choi, played by comedian Ronny Chieng (The Daily Show), provides a hilarious counterpoint to audiences’ pre-conceived notions of Asians as the “model minority.”
A video game-addicted stoner, Choi aggressively lectures the restaurant’s demanding white customers that they are “not the center of the universe.”
“To do something this cool, this meta, this mind-bending and smart — social commentary, but not hitting people over the head with it... this is the stuff that you only dream of being able to do,” he said.
Last week the government announced that by year’s end Taiwan will have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world. Its inventory could exceed 1,400, or enough for the opening two hours of an invasion from the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Snark aside, it sounds impressive. But an important piece is missing. Lost in all the “dialogues” and “debates” and “discussions” whose sole purpose is simply to dawdle and delay is what the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) alternative special defense budget proposal means for the defense of Taiwan. It is a betrayal of both Taiwan and the US. IT’S
Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” was crowned best picture at the 98th Academy Awards, handing Hollywood’s top honor to a comic, multi-generational American saga of political resistance. The ceremony Sunday, which also saw Michael B. Jordan win best actor and “Sinners” cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw make Oscar history as the first female director of photography to win the award, was a long-in-coming coronation for Anderson, a San Fernando Valley native who made his first short at age 18 and has been one of America’s most lionized filmmakers for decades. Before Sunday, Anderson had never won an Oscar. But “One Battle
In Kaohsiung’s Indigenous People’s Park (原住民主題公園), the dance group Push Hands is training. All its members are from Taiwan’s indigenous community, but their vibe is closer to that of a modern, urban hip-hop posse. MIXING CULTURES “The name Push Hands comes from the idea of pushing away tradition to expand our culture,” says Ljakuon (洪濬嚴), the 44-year-old founder and main teacher of the dance group. This is what makes Push Hands unique: while retaining their Aboriginal roots, and even reconnecting with them, they are adamant about doing something modern. Ljakuon started the group 20 years ago, initially with the sole intention of doing hip-hop dancing.
You would never believe Yancheng District (鹽埕) used to be a salt field. Today, it is a bustling, artsy, Kowloon-ish “old town” of Kaohsiung — full of neon lights, small shops, scooters and street food. Two hundred years ago, before Japanese occupiers developed a shipping powerhouse around it, Yancheng was a flat triangle where seawater was captured and dried to collect salt. This is what local art galleries are revealing during the first edition of the Yancheng Arts Festival. Shen Yu-rung (沈裕融), the main curator, says: “We chose the connection with salt as a theme. The ocean is still very near, just a
RSS