Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang) wants to be more than the background character in someone else’s story. Working as a waiter at his uncle’s Chinatown restaurant, the Golden Palace, he spends his days throwing out trash bags and dreaming of being a protagonist. Unfortunately for him, he’s a mere bit-player in the world of “Black & White”, a rote police procedural about two cops who always save the day. Things start to change, however, when he witnesses what seems to be a kidnapping by a local crime gang. Now, alongside Detective Lana Lee (Chloe Bennet), the only cop who seems to care about this side of town, Willis is ready to be a hero. Or, at the very least, a supporting player with a few good lines.
Based on his novel of the same name, author Charles Yu brings to Hulu an adaptation of the satire that won him the National Book Award, with a bit of help from executive producer Taika Waititi, who directed the pilot. On the page, “Interior Chinatown” is a caustic indictment of Asian stereotypes in pop culture that doubles as a touching exploration of race and assimilation. Written in a screenplay format, Yu’s book felt primed for a TV reimagining, and who better to make it happen than the author himself, who wrote for HBO’s “Westworld”? Certainly, this series is canny in its playful and oft-acidic approach to the tropes and cliches that make broadcast TV so watchable yet culturally incurious. If only the execution more frequently matched up to the ideas on display.
As an unwitting background player in another character’s story, much of Willis’ life plays out like a cheekier version of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.” He works, he banters with his colleague (Ronny Chieng) and tries to console his parents (Diana Lin and Tzi Ma) as they grieve the death of his older brother, a kung fu star who had greater leading man energy than Willis has ever possessed. After witnessing the kidnapping, he can’t break through into the spotlight until it approaches him. Doors don’t open, phones don’t work and he’s all but ignored unless it’s pivotal to “Black & White.” People straight-up ignore him when he’s right in front of them if he’s not offering key exposition or a chance for the cops to be mildly racist.
“Black & White” is a hilariously blatant “Law & Order” rip-off, right down to having its own “duh-dun!” beat in the intro. Its undisputed stars are Detectives Sarah Green (Lisa Gilroy) and Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones), a white and Black duo who are forever in sync, finishing one another’s sentences and solving every “impossible crime” that lands their way. Yu has clearly watched a lot of crime procedurals, as evidenced by how spot-on these “on-air” sequences mirror the cliches of the beloved genre. The one-liners are a touch too mannered, the finding of clues too speedy, and the abject dismissal of cultural sensitivities highly on the nose. Being sent to cover cases in Chinatown is mostly an excuse for Det. Green, the ball-busting, dollar store Olivia Benson-type, to offer anti-Asian dog whistles that, frankly, aren’t far off how most procedurals cover Asian representation.
There is life on the show and everything outside of it, and for the most part, Willis is forced to be in the latter, seen as unnecessary to the narrative even though he’s the only witness of the initial crime. He can’t even call the police. They must come to him and declare him important to their story. His life in Chinatown is not devoid of meaning or richness, as his community thrives and reflects something far grander than the cesspool of crime and vaguely defined gang violence as assumed by the detectives. Still, everyone is in an assigned role they’re hoping to escape from: waiter to hero; mother to businesswoman; sidekick to competent waiter (the latter offers some great comedic moments for “The Daily Show” standout Ronnie Chieng.) It’s refreshing to see legendary character actors like Tzi Ma and Diana Lin get a chance to shine in roles worthy of their talents.
When the spotlight falls upon Willis and his home, the entire atmosphere shifts. Suddenly, it’s TV world, complete with lighting changes and an increased bustle in the scene that indicates we’re in the main, if noticeably unreal, world. These changes make for some fun commentary on how network TV glosses over or outright erases anything un-PG 13. Fight scenes are balletic in their choreography and hilariously bloodless until things escalate beyond network rules (and yes, there’s a Wilhelm Scream in there.) Nobody swears. There’s even product placement. The more cliched the “Black & White” scenes are, the more obvious it becomes that this is the norm for entertainment as a whole in how it sidelines stories and people who aren’t so easily boxed in by types and tropes.
“Interior Chinatown” is about exposing the outdated cliches of the medium, exposing the shoddy theatricalities of TV’s most well-worn ideas and how they, inadvertently or otherwise, lend themselves to leaning on garden-variety racism in lieu of something more interesting. That means replicating the worst excesses of the many “Law & Order” spinoffs and wannabes of the decades until they’re driven into the ground. While Yu does well to make this zip along energetically, it can feel didactic in places. The deliberately pointed dialogue has moments that seem there less to create a scene and more to project the themes for those in the cheap seats. The visuals do a strong enough job of showing Willis as the outsider, both literally and metaphorically, without having to have him say “I’m an outsider” repeatedly. Such details work better on the page.
“Interior Chinatown” is the work of a smart and genre-savvy team, and it manages to be entertaining as its own thing alongside its wider dissection of a deep-seated industry problem. While it doesn’t capture the radical freshness of the novel, Yu has wielded his ambitious work into something that sharply examines the oft-untold stories in-between the exposition and cases of the week.
All episodes of “Interior Chinatown” premiere Tuesday, Nov. 19, on Hulu.