Interior Chinatown, the new Hulu series based on the novel by Charles Yu, takes a deeper look at the background characters and extras that fill TV screens, yet remain nameless. Played by Jimmy O. Yang, the series follows Willis Wu, a waiter at a Chinatown restaurant who wants more from life than the banality he succumbs to on a daily basis. One night, he happens upon an abduction accidentally and tries to help the authorities with his witness statement. Yet, something’s off. The moment he tries to break out of his monotonous life, everything around him pushes back. Literally.
Multiple attempts to enter the police precinct lead to failure, while a tunnel separating his life in Chinatown and the greater city becomes a warped psychedelic experience as he pushes against his role. Slowly but surely, he begins to piece together that he’s inside of a police procedural and he’ll do everything in his power to not only break out, but also understand what happened to his disappearing brother.
The concept is wonderful, taking the rather one-note film Free Guy and adding an abundance of nuance when it comes to Asian representation in media, police procedural drawl, and the concept of “the forgotten”. Yet, for every one step forward the series takes, it takes two steps back as the series bogs itself down with tedious B and C plotlines.
All while Wu is attempting to break free from the confines of his role are his mother Lily (Diana Lin) and best friend Fatty Choi (Ronny Chieng) partaking in their own pushes towards personal greatness that don’t seem to mesh as well as intended. Both are fine performers given subpar material to make their characters feel superfluous.
Sullivan Jones and Lisa Gilroy play the main two detectives within the procedural Black & White, and thus are given the most fun job of playing up the stupidity of the genre’s dialogue and bracing facial expressions. Gilroy stands out especially with her immense background in comedic characters work (i.e. After Midnight, Jury Duty, etc.). Chloe Bennet plays Detective Lana Lee, a “diversity hire” who is an “expert” on Chinatown. She is given the freedom to bumble around comedically and still work towards dramatic ends throughout the series.
Yang is wonderful as Willis Wu, showcasing the ever growing realization of his sidelined situation and the hoops he’ll have to jump through to not only have his brother’s disappearance solved, but also finally enter the spotlight. It’s a hard character to pull off, as the meta nature of the entire series brings buckets of aforementioned nuance into every scene, but Yang navigates the arc with a deft hand.
In some cases, movies can feel so overstuffed that they yearn for a limited series. In the case of Interior Chinatown, I’m not entirely sure a series was the proper format. This could’ve been a riveting two-hour film, allowing the juxtaposition of the “real” world and the “TV” world to be showcased on a grander scale (even if the lighting changes always add to the series’ mission statement). In this ten episode format, it feels redundant. Many of the B and C plots feel like time-filler instead of propelling the story forward.
For a book that thrives on breaking the norms (formatted like a script), Interior Chinatown does an excellent job at pushing towards representation realizations and the power we all have to create our own stories. Yet, it can’t fully break out of the norms of television limited series, adding a bit too much filler. CUT TO: A decent series that could’ve been an exceptional film.
All episodes of Interior Chinatown are now streaming on Hulu.