*Note that this is a review of the first five episodes of Interior Chinatown
When you watch an episode of a Law and Order-style police procedural, there are certain roles that everyone is forced to play. Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones) and Sarah Green (Lisa Gilory) are the lead detectives who always solve the toughest cases and look good while doing it. Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet) is the rookie, ambiguously Asian cop assigned to work with Turner and Green because she’s the “Chinatown expert” despite knowing nothing about the area.
There’s even the angry captain who, in one scene, yells at Lana. Every cliché angry police chief line you can think of, like “you’re on thin ice” or “one more mistake and you’re in big trouble.” Everyone in a TV police procedural is forced to play a role, including the most minor and unmemorable background characters who are just there to fill up the screen. Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) is one of those characters but is not content.
What makes Interior Chinatown feel so fresh and unique in a swath of generic, boring, and unmemorable police procedurals that have become a staple in network TV and even streaming services is how it approaches its subject matter. The show critiques and deconstructs its genre and how Asian Americans are normally relegated within that genre.
Willis is a waiter at his uncle’s Chinese restaurant and hates that this is his role. He’s tired of doing the same thing and serving the same food every day. He’s disappointed that the best part of his miserable experience is when he throws out the trash with his best friend, Fatty (Ronny Chieng). He’s sick of being a nobody, and his only purpose is to shut up, set the table, and ask for a customer’s order.
He desperately wants to be like his older brother: a cool, badass, Bruce Lee-type action star. He wants to do important things like what Turner and Green do daily. He wants to be a main character and finally be someone. Yet every time he tries to change his role, even slightly or elevate his status, he is rejected and put back in his place. He wants to be a Bruce Lee-type action hero, but he gets beat up by a gang of random Chinese gangsters that trash the restaurant.
He wants to be a detective like Lana, but he can’t even make it past the front door of the police station. He wants to be the main character, but he cannot advance the plot metaphorically and literally unless he plays his demeaning and stereotyped parts: a waiter, a Chinese takeout delivery boy, and a nerdy tech guy. He can be anyone he wants… if it nicely fits in a box for people who look like Jian-Yang from Silicon Valley.
It’s clear that Willis wants to be more than what he’s given, but every time he tries to solve the mystery of his missing brother or even leaves Chinatown, he is forced to butt heads with the script. I don’t mean that in a metaphorical sense or as an allusion; I mean he literally is forced to fight the script, directing, framing, and even the lighting of this Law and Order-style police procedural. What makes Interior Chinatown such a fascinating and refreshing takedown of by-the-numbers cop shows is just how much it dips into the surreal when criticizing and satirizing the genre.
This series is very obviously inspired by surrealist filmmakers like David Lynch and Charlie Kaufman because it makes no distinction between the cop show and the characters in real life. Reality is whatever Interior Chinatown wishes it to be. Unlike filmmakers like Quentin Dupieux or post-Science of Sleep Michel Gondry, who just throw in whacky, quirky stuff for the sake of it, the show makes it clear that every moment of surrealism is for a narrative and thematic purpose.
The way the lighting and colour palate change from disgusting, David Yates-esque blue whenever Turner and Green are on-screen reciting their generic cop show dialogue to much more natural lighting and muted colours whenever Willis or his friends/family are on screen is visually striking while also properly communicates each scene’s central tone.
The show, at times, becomes almost like a Satoshi Kon film as Willis jumps back and forth between the present, events from his past, and uncanny dream sequences (i.e. when Willis’ desk crashes through a building and somehow ends up in a past memory involving his brother) with each of these moments feeling equally real. Willis’ fight to escape the box he’s pigeonholed in even causes other characters to either be forced into elevated roles they didn’t ask for or become self-aware of the generic, cliché police procedural they’re in, causing them to become sick of the tired roles they’re forced to play.
For a show that’s essentially just a standard cop show with a primarily Asian American cast, Interior Chinatown does not concern itself with telling a conventional or coherent plot. It’s not interested in presenting a straightforward cop story in which the main character and his buddies jump from one plot point to the next, uncover clues, and eventually uncover a twist revealing the true villain that pulled the strings. It uses the false assumption of being an average police procedural and becomes something much more interesting and emotionally resonant, especially to Asian Americans like me.
There is a plot that ties everything together and is not very difficult to follow if you still desire a standard narrative and can move past the weirder elements. However, I was far more intrigued by what this show had to say underneath the surface and how it chose to tell its central message through much more surreal, abstract, and visually interesting means.
The show is by no means perfect. The humour can be very hit or miss; some actors feel less like they’re playing characters and more like they are just doing their shtick. Additionally, some action scenes are somewhat poorly shot and choppily edited. However, I am willing to look past these flaws because Interior Chinatown‘s core narrative is worth sitting through. This show hooked me, and I cannot wait to see where the story goes post-episode 5.
Rating: 7/10