Willis Wu is stuck in a routine: He’s a waiter at Chinatown restaurant, Golden Palace, he hangs out with his best friend, Fatty Choi, and he takes care of his parents.
“I feel like I’m a background character in someone else’s story,” he says to Fatty, late one night.
But when he goes looking for more, Willis finds a mystery involving his missing brother and the crimes of Chinatown.
This is an adapted series from Charles Yu’s book, Interior Chinatown. The ten-episode series, of the same name, came out on Hulu on Nov. 19, 2024, starring Jimmy O. Yang, Ronny Chieng, and Chloe Bennet, amongst others.
The book, written in the font and form of a screenplay— hence the name, “Interior Chinatown,” takes a satirical approach to commenting on pop culture, race, growing up, and family. The series takes on a similar strategy, though the story is different.
When a series of murders in Chinatown spurs a police investigation, Detectives Sarah Green (Lisa Gilroy) and Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones) bring in Lana Lee (Bennet) as their “Chinatown expert.” However, she has ulterior motives: Behind the scenes, she’s investigating the disappearance of famed, “Kung-Fu Guy,” older brother (Chris Pang), a.k.a. Willis’ missing brother. The series follows both investigations. The satirical approach comes in when the series itself turns in on itself.
It becomes a meta, show-inside-of-a-show, called “Black and White: Impossible Crimes Unit,” a play off of Law & Order: SVU. The set up of the series is similar to WandaVision; the events of Black and White are set alongside, “real life,” being the events of Willis’ life. Interior Chinatown is a conglomeration of every cop procedural show. In fact, Willis even tells Fatty (Chieng) that, “The first person in a procedural is either a victim or a witness.”
But the series knows that about itself and the meta dialogue and events add to the humor and genius of the story. Chieng, as Fatty Choi, is especially hilarious, delivering one-liners and commentary as he does on The Daily Show.
However, there are parts of the series that don’t hit the mark in the way that Chieng’s comedy does. Though Jones and Gilroy intentionally overexaggerate their characters, which adds to the meta-reality of the show, sometimes their acting falls flat; too stereotypical and inflated. Similarly, there are moments in the rest of the series, unrelated to Black and White that are similarly too exaggerated. Occasionally, the pacing of the show is slow— seemingly intending to fit more into the story and to hit the ten-episode mark that has become the norm for streaming series. But the matrix of plot makes up for that and reminds the audience what it is that Black and White is doing.
The show diverges monumentally from the book, creating almost an entirely different story. However, Yu was involved in the show’s creation , which means that though it isn’t a perfect adaptation, it stays true to the message and understanding of the book.
And in the end of the series, Willis figures out who he is supposed to be and what he is supposed to do. In the end, he decides for himself what his story is supposed to be.
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