Note: The PFA audience is invited to a reception hosted by NAATA in the Swallow area of the Museum following the 7:00 show.

Between the time of its Bay Area premiere at PFA in December 1981 and now, Wayne Wang's Chan Is Missing (the first Asian American feature) has enjoyed enormous success in New York and in San Francisco, where it was filmed. A mystery set in Chinatown, Chan Is Missing combines lively, often hand-held photography with beautiful “still lives” of Chinatown to create an atmosphere that seems to evolve from the location itself. An inventive narrative construction utilizes both dialogue and voice-over. Many members of the Chinatown community play themselves in the film, but the performances of Woody Moy and Marc Hayashi as the two protagonists are both professional and memorable.
The story involves two Chinese taxi drivers who are looking for their business partner, Chan Hung, a middle-aged Taiwan immigrant who has vanished with their money. Their search for clues to Chan's whereabouts leads them to his family, friends and acquaintances, who reveal a great diversity of people and cultural backgrounds which make up life in Chinatown.
“Chan Is Missing is about how Chinese people perceive themselves as ‘Chinese living in America,' ‘Chinese Americans,' and ‘Americans.' These complex perceptions are distinct sensibilities that are often at odds with Western values. It is this dynamic humanism in Asians which Hollywood moviemakers have depicted as being inscrutable and docile.....” --Wayne Wang