Chan is Missing / Slamdance

Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive series Directed by Wayne Wang. Register at cinema.ucla.edu to attend this in-theater screening.

New 4K restoration

In person: Wayne Wang & CSU Long Beach professor Oliver Wang

Wayne Wang’s debut feature also represents a much larger cultural milestone as the first Chinese American feature-length narrative film to achieve broad critical acclaim outside of the Asian American community. Made in the golden age of American indies for $22,000, Chan is Missing, celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2022, is the essential entry point into Wang’s incredibly eclectic career.

(1982, dir. Wayne Wang, DCP, black & white, English and Cantonese with English subtitles, 80 min.)

Original release print

Wayne Wang’s third feature film is as hedonistically unhinged as its title suggests. Los Angeles-based cartoonist Charles “C.C.” Drood (Tom Hulce) leads a chaotic life “anchored” by late nights at dance clubs. When Drood returns home one day to find his studio apartment has been burgled, he’s knocked unconscious by the culprit, instigating a whirlwind mystery wherein the audience knows about as much as our hapless victim.

(1987, dir. Wayne Wang, 35mm, color, 92 min.)