SPOILER ALERT: This article contains specific plot details about Interior Chinatown read at your own risk!
Let’s just get this out of the way: Interior Chinatown is a good series. It’s worth your time and is fun to watch. Is it perfect? No. Then again, is any show ever perfect? Because there’s no such thing about perfect.
Ever since Crazy Rich Asians and post-Fresh Off the Boat, there have been offerings of Asian-led scripted series from many streamers and networks. Netflix gave us The Brothers Sun and Never Have I Ever, FX served up the Emmy-winning juggernaut Shōgun, The CW had their redux of Kung Fu while Disney+ gave us the fantastical, culturally-rich American Born Chinese which had Charles Yu, the creator of Interior Chinatown and the author of the award-winning book on which the Hulu series was based, in the writers room.
In a perfect world, Interior Chinatown would be taken for what it is: a meta sci-fi series about a dude named Willis (Jimmy O. Yang) who discovers he is stuck as a background actor in a procedural series and finds out his older brother may or may not have been a victim in the scam-of-a-life that he has been living. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, his family’s buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.
Considering we are in an age of the diversity and representation police coming at us from outside and within marginalized communities, the series is going to be labeled Asian-forward (I mean, look at the title) which is great, but I hope viewers don’t hinge the narrative entirely identity. Yes, it’s a part of the narrative but Yu shakes all of that shit up and fucks with it — and us. He’s simultaneously skewering and appreciating Hollywood’s “I would have voted for Obama a third time if I could have” perception of diversity, equity, and inclusion — aka the Notorious D.E.I.
Specifically, the series is a parable about the evolution of Asian representation in film and TV by using the procedural as the perfect example with Yang embodying stereotypical, nameless roles for AAPI actors: “Chinese Restaurant Waiter”, “Delivery Guy”, “Translator”, and “Tech Guy” (which was a job Willis takes from a South Asian in the series — don’t know if that was intentional, but loved it) Each “role” gets him closer and closer to having a name, finding his brother and having a fully fleshed-out character and, as the show stresses, “a brand”.
In its hyper-meta way, Interior Chinatown speaks to the impact of the divisive discourse of what DEI has become. It does this with humor and leaning into stereotypes in a playful, yet meaningful way so that we can unpack it instead of being hypercritical about it. It doesn’t shove it down our throats. At one point, Willis and his BFF Fatty (Ronny Chieng) are having a conversation about how people like them don’t leave Chinatown:
“Guys like us don’t become the heroes,” says Willis.
“Guys like us? Waiters?” asks Fatty.
Willis responds, “Yeah! Guys in an alley – far from the action. From Chinatown.”
Smartly, Yu keeps the story open so it could be a narrative about belonging to something bigger. When Willis says that one way to get out of Chinatown is through kung fu, it’s like when Belle from Beauty and the Beast sings, “There must be more than this provincial life”.
Like Belle and Bilbo Baggins, he’s ready for an adventure.
* * * *
As Interior Chinatown leans into the Asian representation of it all, Yu plunges into the typecasting of its main players in the most thoughtful and intentional way possible.
As Willis becomes more and more self-aware of his place in this Truman Show-esque web, he begins to ask questions about how to be in the spotlight instead of the background of this fictional procedural called Black & White. He knows there is more outside of his role as a waiter. He eventually fights his way to the top and becomes the unlikely hero and the poster child of “representation”, so to speak. Yang, a stand-up comedian and actor who played characters that are often seen as stereotypical, echoes Willis’s journey.
Fatty’s ornery and unfiltered demeanor is similar to Chieng’s stand-up. Acting legends Tzi Ma and Diana Lin are cast as Willis’s mom and dad, Lily and Joel – and they also played husband and wife in Lulu Wang’s The Farewell. Chloe Bennet, who is half Chinese is a character that will speak to white-passing Asians, their supposed “privilege”, and how they navigate the world. One could also say that Detective Lisa Gilroy (Sarah Green) gives perfect “white woman in power” energy.
And shout out to Yu and his writers room for crafting a story of brotherly love between Willis and “Older Brother” (Chris Pang). That’s something we don’t see often: male sensitivity in the Asian American culture – specifically with Asian American males and Asian immigrants.
Although the sibling love story was appreciated, it was lost in the shuffle at times. There were a couple of things that I thought didn’t hit the mark.
Series or film adaptations of books are often put under a microscope to pick them apart so that people can say “the book is better”. Adaptations should be separate entities from the source material. That said, my knowledge of Yu’s book is minuscule except for the fact that the book is written like a script which should make for an easy adaptation, but I would argue that it makes it more difficult. In the latter half of the series, you start to feel its struggle as it tries its best to cross the finish line. Perhaps Interior Chinatown was a victim of the writers strike with its final episodes.
With all its satire and ambitious storytelling, Interior Chinatown suffers from Lost narrative fatigue. Like the popular sci-fi fantasy series and more recent series like Game of Thrones, Interior Chinatown starts with a concept that reels you and once you get immersed, you begin to get impatient with the breadcrumbs that have been left in the nine episodes before the finale. There comes a point where you don’t care where the crumbs lead at this point, you just want straightforward answers. I found myself demanding “I just need to know at least ONE person who knows what the hell is going on!”
There is a lot of exposition fit into the dialogue and as the series goes on, it becomes more exposition-heavy. Perhaps it’s just me, but it wasn’t clear as to who was controlling Willis or the narrative or, more specifically, the main “antagonist”. Yes, leaving that up to mystery or metaphor is fine but I need someone to root against. There are plenty to root for, but not many to love to hate — except the tertiary character, Betty, played with such glamorous condescending energy by Lauren Tom.
None of this takes away from the great moments. It’s a nicely woven — and ambitious story once it gets off the ground, but what is set up to be a climactic finale turns out to be not as big and met with a golf clap rather than thunderous applause.
The show has a unique way of playing with genre, but at the same time, it’s a method of storytelling we have seen with Wandavision and the recent spin-off Agatha All Along. The Marvel Studios titles took genres as a stylistic way to tell the lore of the characters of Wanda Maximoff and Agatha Harkness – and that broke open a fresh technique for series television to put a spin on storytelling. Interior Chinatown does the same but sets itself apart by staying specifically in the procedural drama genre.
In Interior Chinatown, we see an ‘80s version of the procedural which gives us an introduction to Willis’s missing older brother known as “Kung Fu Guy” as well as two white male cops – fulfilling the young, handsome good cop/one old, gruff bad cop trope. With each opening credit sequence for Black & White within Interior Chinatown, we also see the style change from more network television Law & Order vibes to the style of edgier prestige television like True Detective and Mare of Easttown. Even the main “stars” of Black & White, Detective Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones) and his partner Detective Green represent a more “progressive” procedural cop duo with a Black man and white woman in a platonic relationship.
Interior Chinatown’s genre-bending doesn’t solidify at the end. It needs more runway to tell its ambitious story – and I would have watched a couple more episodes. The series lives in the space between the maximalism of Everything Everywhere All At Once and of-the-moment indie fare like Better Luck Tomorrow. Both Asian American-centric titles are ambitious in storytelling and use identity as one color of a kaleidoscopic narrative. As hyper-realistically meta as it is, Interior Chinatown feels restrained. It doesn’t go full-out chaotic bedlam – although I felt that’s what it wanted to do. It’s too wacky and meta to be “traditional” and not bonkers enough to earn the “so-weird-that-its-cool” crown.
But that’s not to say that Yu isn’t doing amazing things with this series. He takes risks. He’s bold. He’s weird. And I wanted to go off the rails with meta-hyperrealism. As we navigate in and out of “Black & Blue world” and “Willis’s world” we are indeed, taken on a journey that only Yu could tell.
* * * *
From the aforementioned cast as well as Archie Kao as Uncle Wong and Chau Long as the lovable Carl, all actors put their all in Interior Chinatown. It felt like a cohesive unit — but it’s all about the women for me.
As Lily, Diana Lin is the heart of the series. Her character and her performance are a touchstone that brings all of the splintering storylines together. She represents a spirit of hope that reverberates through the other characters.
Chloe Bennett delivers an impressive performance as Lana. If Willis is a background character, Lana is a supporting actor. As her partnership with Willis grows stronger, she steps into the background with Willis instead of the other way around. Metaphorically, she starts to step into her “Asianness”.
One of the best moments of the series is not a wild fight scene, but a scene shared between Lana and Lily where they share a moment remembering Older Brother. It’s quiet, mindful, heartfelt, and filled with emotion. There’s a peace and understanding between Lana and Lily that isn’t felt at any other moment in the series.
* * * *
With Interior Chinatown, author Charles Yu chose the hardest level of difficulty and hit the mark on many things while falling short on others. Yu has added another building block to his scripted oeuvre, giving us another peek into his wildly creative mind. He is thoughtful with his work and cleverly subverts timely themes through a meta lens. More specifically, Yu examines AAPI representation through an economic lens. Meaning, what people in the margins sacrifice to achieve what the dominant culture says we “should be” or what is traditionally considered the norm. Interior Chinatown boldly says: “Fuck that noise.”
