Disc Details
Special Features:	Original Cast Auditions Behind the Scenes Footage Director's Commentary Outtakes Premiere Footage Fight Choreography Footage Stereo Surround China Travelogue Footage Extra Scenes DVD-O-Rama Free Fortune Teller in every DVD
Video Format:	Widescreen (1.85:1) [SS-SL]
Languages:	English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
Subtitles:	None
Captions:	No
Casing:	1-Disc Keep Case

I think that Lee’s spirit was crushed before she came to America. While in China, I imagine her not speaking unless spoken to, head bowed, waiting on someone, waiting for something. Now in America, she has traded one form of repression in on another. The land of the free is only free for a select few, she discovers.

Lee is the engaging central character in Now Chinatown, Steven Dunning’s wonderful independent film made in 2000. Lee is played by Lianne X. Hu with a kind of unchained humility and control that is graceful. Hu knows just how to posture herself in a way that looks broken. In making Now Chinatown, Dunning was mindful of this quality positioning his camera carefully capturing the emptiness of Lee’s expressions and the longing that rests uneasily beneath. There are moments in this film when the camera skillfully pauses on Hu as Lee, just waits and the introspective viewer is intrigued, even moved.

Now Chinatown tells the story of Lee after she has immigrated to America. She works in a restaurant in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. It is one of those small Chinese establishments that service the local inhabitants mainly handling a large lunch crowd who rarely eat in—think “take way.” One day, the restaurant is visited by a strange, seemingly harmless, American named Steve (filmmaker Steven Dunning) who orders a meal. He isn’t sure he is in the right place. The owners of the restaurant are hesitant to even serve him; they aren’t used to his kind—the round eye.

Steve is a kind man, soft-spoken with friendly eyes. He witnesses the mistreatment of Lee at the hands of the business’ owners and seeks Lee out afterwards to try to help her. As an American, it is inconceivable to Steve that Lee would endure such abuse; after all, she could just leave, right? Originally, we aren’t sure of his motives. Is he attracted to Lee? Who is he, this aloof man so out of place in Chinatown?

Steve’s interest in Lee is quickly matched by Lee’s interest in Steve. After all, no one ever really talks with Lee, only to her with orders and demands.

Steve returns the following day to the restaurant and orders a meal. This time Lee is mistreated even more harshly. Steve intervenes and receives a beating. Still, he is undeterred and seeks Lee out again. This time Lee is more receptive to his innocent advances. The two talk to one another. She discovers that Steve is a traveler who has been all over the world. Steve learns that Lee goes nowhere, forbidden to even leave Chinatown out of an obligation to her ailing grandmother still residing in China.

Now Chinatown is more than a tender love story. While there is a sincere love affair blossoming between Steve and Lee, the story is too well written to fall into familiar formulaic trends. Now Chinatown’s ambition is to be both a love story and the story of escape from repression. It succeeds, I think. Sometimes one must let loose of a great love in order to be free of great restraint. Lee must choose and her choice is tiny in the scheme of things but powerful if one takes time to think about it. Even in a free civilized society one can be paralyzed by fear and trapped into an uneventful life without purpose or experience.

Steven Dunning has populated his film with an excellent Asian-American supporting cast highlighted by June Lu Kyoto as the Empress and Ming Lo as Assistant Deputy Consul. It concerned me that certain story elements may have been inaccurate because the film was written and directed by an American. It made me remember the criticism I read about Pearl S. Buck’s The Good Earth. I wonder whether similar things are being said about Dunning’s film.

Dunning does an adequate job in the role of Steve. He underplays Steve well, but I wonder whether more could have been done with the character. When Spike Lee appears in his films, he is Spike Lee. I think that Dunning suffers from a similar problem, directing himself. His Steve is a little too omnipresent and all-knowing; you can just tell it in his face, he knows too much. One of the film’s closing scenes seems a little forced with a convenient set of letters (one from Steve) serving as artificial plot devices occurring only in filmland. Still, Hu’s guileless performance overcomes these crutches.

Now Chinatown is based in the heartfelt performance of Lianne X. Hu playing a character foreign to many Americans not because we aren’t Chinese but because many of us have freedom to move about and to see the world even if it is the world down the street or in the next state. Watch for Hu’s smile, greater than all the special effects of any hundred million dollar Hollywood blockbuster. It is the smile one has when free.

Picture Quality: 8/10
Nice transfer, although a few scenes shot at night suffered, but I'm not sure if that is related to the transfer.

Sound Quality: 8/10
The score is fine, and played well during the film’s climatic moments. I had to mess around with the Dolby options on the disc in order to hear the sound on some of the extras.

Menu: 9/10
Looks excellent, but I wish that the jump between extras was not proceeded by an introduction of several seconds. I would have preferred an immediate return to the menu. Nice background images combined with comments from the actors and sound bites from film festivals are neatly used.

Extra Features: 10/10
Wonderful independent touches like inclusion of audition tapes showing the actors reading for different roles and a lot of footage from the various film festivals all over the world. The DVD-O-Rama extra has odd bits including Dunning interviewing Asian Americans. The extras are the main reason why I lobbied hard to get this on our top 10 list. Based on my experience, many independent films are made with little thought given to the DVD release. Filmmakers should take note of the Now Chinatown disc because, after all, most independent films will be seen only on DVD. From a pure marketing approach, it might be a good idea to have a video camera or two rolling while filming just to capture those moments that make great extras.

The Final Word:
Now Chinatown, the DVD, takes advantage of a great amount of unconventional material for its extras making it one of the best independently made DVDs of 2002.

Jonathan W. Hickman