"In those days all the Chinese characters on TV and in movies were laundry men, servants, cooks or, worse, Fu Manchus and Suzie Wongs. They were all stereotypical images," Chan Is Missing director Wayne Wang told LAist. "There hadn't been a film done that represented Chinese, Chinese-Americans, or [San Francisco's] Chinatown in a very real way."

"In the end it's really about the people in Chinatown."

I didn't get into it in my interview with Wang on LAist (at least not in what went to press), but what I found most affecting on re-watching the film was how it really understood the discomfort second generation Asian-Americans/children of Asian immigrants had with their parents' generation. It's an attempt at distancing and not wanting to seem like a "FOB," and the way the film understands this as part of the murkiness of the so-called "Asian-American identity" makes it still resonate 34 years later.