Product Details

• Actors: Marc Hayashi, Wood Moy, Roy Chan, Leong Pui Chee, Laureen Chew
• Format: Black & White, Content/Copy-Protected CD, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Cantonese, English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: KOCH LORBER FILMS
• DVD Release Date: January 24, 2006
• Run Time: 80 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000BRBAAQ
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #114,688 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Chan Is Missing" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

CHAN IS MISSING - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Well worth watching and probably buying, December 14, 2006

By 

C. O. DeRiemer (San Antonio, Texas, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chan Is Missing (DVD)

Take a small, clever film, paste on adjectives like "whimsical," "charming," "endearing," "insightful," and you'll have a movie that many will run away from in droves. For Chan Is Missing, that would be too bad because they'd be missing something whimsical, charming, endearing and insightful.

This was Wayne Wang's first feature movie, made with a $20,000 budget and shot in glorious 16-mm black and white. It's a detective story, sort of. Two cabbies in San Francisco's Chinatown, Jo (Wood Moy) and Steve (Marc Hayashi), discover Chan Hung is nowhere to be found. They had given him $4,000 to invest in a business deal. For the next few days they are going to try and track him down through Chinatown's alleys and side streets, the cheap hotels, the middle-class apartments, the sweating kitchens and the shops and the community halls. Jo is the older one, short and a bit heavy, quiet and thoughtful. Steve is young, hip and at times impatient. As they start looking and meeting people, we quickly realize that this is no real detection mystery. We wind up quickly liking the two cabbies, and liking everyone they meet. Before long, we even like what we hear about Chan.

The movie is really not about finding Chan Hung and the missing $4,000. It's all about Wayne Wang's attempt to look at issues of assimilation and identity among Chinese-Americans. He does this with a light hand. The discussion Jo and Steve have with a young lawyer who is trying to describe why her client is in trouble with the police -- because he answered questions in a Chinese way about a traffic accident -- is deadpan, totally confusing to Jo and Steve as well as us, and priceless. In a sweltering kitchen we meet a young short-order cook who wears a Saturday Night Live T-shirt, sings "fry me to the moon," and really dislikes having to keep turning out orders of sweet-and-sour pork. We meet Chan's wife and his friends who are interviewed usually by Jo. We learn some about those who like Taiwan and those who like mainland China. The "flag-waving incident" keeps coming up but no one really knows much about it. Everything is a series of encounters with people of all types in Chinatown, handled with warmth and observant interest. In my view, the film slows a bit at the end as Jo, who has been serving as our narrator, tries in his own way to sum up things. What we're left with is an intelligent and charming movie about how people from one strong culture move and live within another strong culture, and how most of them manage in both.

Did Jo and Steve ever find Chan and their $4,000? You'll have to watch the movie...but that's hardly the point of it, is it?

The movie is grainy and looks just the way it was supposed to. There are three extras of interest. The first is a "Making of..." featurette, followed by two on-camera interviews with Wood Moy and Marc Hayashi filmed more than 20 years after the release of the movie. The film uses subtitles when Cantonese is spoken.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars First Feature Film From Wayne Wang, April 12, 2007

By 

L. Shirley "Laurie's Boomer Views" (Huntington Beach,CA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chan Is Missing (DVD)

Fans of Wayne Wang's "Smoke" and Indie fans alike, will surely want to check out his first feature "Chan Is Missing" A charming black and white, set in San Francisco Chinatown of the 80's. The story revolves around two Chinese-American men who have turned over $4,000.00 to a friend who has promised to help set them up in the cabbie business. When the friend turns up missing(as well as the cash), they search the city trying to find him. Becoming amateur sleuths, trying to unravel the mysterious surroundings of his disappearance, the film takes on a new meaning for the title "Chan Is Missing". A story within a story of the Chinese-American community, old and new generations, trying to find it's place in modern day America. Integrating old customs with new ways of living,overcoming the differences of even the various Chinese cultures in the city, and often finding that even in language, ideas get lost in translation. You may even see shades of the wonderful "Flower Drum Song" here. As one of the characters puts it: We used to be considered "FOB"(Fresh off the boat), now they come on jumbo jets.

The film is a quiet study of the journey taken by the two main characters, a nice tour through Chinatown, and is done with good humor as the main character sometimes sees himself as a modern day Charlie Chan following the clues to finding his friend.It is filled with interesting and real characters. The black and white, full frame filming gives that old time detective movie feeling. The DVD(Koch/Lorber) is not the sharpest I have seen of film transfers of the 80's, but a nice view, and has some nice features. Interviews with the stars and a making of feature. The DVD lists Cantonese and English as the language, but if you are looking for it to be mostly Cantonese, it is not. There is not even a Cantonese language track option. It is mostly English, and the few scenes with Cantonese dialogue do have optional English subtitles. The film is not rated but does have some strong language.

I enjoyed the film and the performances by Wood Moy and Marc Hayashi and the choice of music used to accompany their journey as well.A fine first feature film from Director Wang, and nice black and white cinematography from Michael Chin, but probably not one you will want to spend the big bucks on they are charging for this DVD, as it may not stand up to repeated viewings. Rent it, watch it a couple of times. You may find something in the 2nd view you did not catch in the first. The film runs about 80 minutes, a perfect length to tell this charmer.

Enjoy the film....Laurie

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chan wasn't missing., February 12, 2007

By 

Bruce Swanson (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chan Is Missing (DVD)

After 25 years I saw this pearl again, catching something I missed the first time: the whole point of the movie. Jo was right when he said of himself, "I'm no Charlie Chan." But the mystery of why Chan Hung hides just out of earshot remains. The movie has aged, but still tantalizes.