Commentary

'Interior Chinatown' Is Difficult To Categorize, Easy To Love

The interior life of a young Chinatown restaurant waiter forms the basis for “Interior Chinatown,” a new Hulu series that is dramatic, comedic and keenly satirical.

“Interior Chinatown” defies categorization, but who cares about categories, anyway? The only entity in the TV biz who cares about categories anymore is the Emmys.

Let’s see if I can describe this show adequately. The show centers on Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang, pictured above), a young man still trying to find his way in the world.

In conversations with his friend and co-worker, Fatty Choi (Ronny Chieng) -- whose first name is a misnomer since “Fatty” is not evidently overweight -- Willis bemoans the state of his life, and shares his ambition to, just once, be a hero.

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His one outlet from the routine of working in the restaurant is kung fu, in which he trains himself in his spare time. 

Although he does not appear to be particularly athletic, Willis has come a long way in his kung fu training, but he has yet to truly put it into practice.

In addition to longing to do something heroic and to finally be “seen” by the world around him, Willis is a devoted fan of police procedurals on TV.

The one he loves in particular is called “Black & White: Impossible Crimes Unit,” featuring a pair of swashbuckling and extremely good-looking detective partners -- a white woman and a black man.

In the premiere episode of “Interior Chinatown,” Willis witnesses a crime, but it turns out to be a crime that took place inside the TV show.

This confuses Willis, who is no longer sure whether his life is real, or if he now resides in the background of this police show.

Willis might be confused, but a viewer is not. This show-within-a-show scenario is one of the joys of “Interior Chinatown,” which the TV Blog deems to be hugely entertaining based on a viewing of Episode One. I love everything about this show.

Its title, “Interior Chinatown,” has two meanings that reflect the melding of this show into the TV cop show.

The title refers to the inner life of Willis, but also to the society of Chinatown residents who reside in its walk-up apartments and tenements. Indeed, almost every scene in the premiere episode of “Interior Chinatown” takes place indoors.

The title also acknowledges and makes reference to the nature of the show, and the cop show within it, as written, scripted TV shows. 

The term “Interior Chinatown” and others like it populate TV and movie scripts to identify where a scene is to take place. In fact, the title frame at the show’s opening displays the title as “Int. Chinatown” in a typewriter font.

As the locale for this TV show, the “Chinatown” in the show is not identified as belonging to any specific city. It is likely that the show’s Chinatown is meant to stand in for all Chinatowns. 

Google AI says parts of the show were filmed in Chinatowns in Los Angeles, Toronto and even New Zealand. 

I also think some of it was filmed on an elaborate Chinatown set on a studio backlot somewhere, but I could be mistaken. 

The time frame for “Interior Chinatown” is definitely the pre-smartphone era, perhaps in the 1990s or earlier. The TVs are old sets with convex screens and the show’s telephones have cords.

With kung fu forming one of the show’s key elements, some of it plays like classic kung fu movies -- what Variety used to refer to as “chopsocky.”

Not everybody in “Interior Chinatown” is kung fu fighting, but when the time comes, Willis fights with expert timing, to paraphrase an old song.

The song is “Kung Fu Fighting” (1974) by Carl Douglas, one of the great one-hit wonders of the ’70s. 

In “Interior Chinatown,” a minor character is even named Carl. I look forward to another one named Douglas.

“Interior Chinatown” starts streaming on Tuesday, November 19, on Hulu and Disney+.

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