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Quick Links Interior Chinatown Presents a Different Take on WandaVision's TV Reality Interior Chinatown's Puzzle Box Narrative Will Intrigue WandaVision Fans Interior Chinatown Puts a More Positive Spin on WandaVision's Premise

WandaVision kicked off the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Disney+ era with a bang. With the mysterious resurrection of Vision and the show's unexplained sitcom format, Marvel Studios' first TV series captured audiences' attention every week as fans tried to figure out what was going on. Even though some weren't satisfied with the ending, it's still regarded as one of the McU's best series. It now has a worthy follow-up in Agatha All Along and is set to receive another spinoff, Vision Quest, in 2026. However, fans looking for a true spiritual successor to WandaVision need look no further than this 2024 Hulu series, which currently has 91 percent on Rotten Tomatoes' Popcornmeter (formerly known as audience score).

Based on Charles Yu...

Interior Chinatown's protagonist feels like he's a background character in someone else's story, which is exactly the premise of the new crime comedy series. Adapted from Charles Yu's 2020 novel of the same name, the show premiered November 19 on Hulu and centers Willis Wu (Silicon Valley's Jimmy O. Yang), a background actor playing out Asian American cliches in the police procedural Black and White. The "Generic Asian Man" gets a chance to level up, however, when he witnesses an abduction outside his uncle's restaurant, Golden Palace.

Every episode of Interior Chinatown intersects with the world of Willis' fictional cop show, which is led by Detective Sarah Green (Lisa Gilroy) and Detective Miles Turner (Sullivan Jones) and is as cookie-cutter as TV gets. But Black and White gets upended as well when Detective Lana Lee (Agents of Shield's Chloe Bennet) is brought in to deal with crime in Chinatown and...

Interior Chinatown may occasionally seem like an unhinged meta-show that’s rather hard to understand, but in reality, it’s a very simple concept. It’s about how Willis goes from his assigned side character to being the main character of his own story, i.e., how he goes from being invisible to being the center of attention. In Interior Chinatown, Willis is a waiter at Golden Palace, a Chinese restaurant at the heart of Chinatown. He’s tired of his life, and he wishes he could be as cool as his missing older brother, who was a kung fu expert. Willis practices kung-fu himself, but he’s of course not the golden boy of his family; he’s just an invisible “generic Chinese guy.” Willis has always wanted to be a detective; he wants to solve mysteries. So, one day, when a woman gets kidnapped at the back of the restaurant,...

Every TV fan has fantasized about being the main character.

Whether it’s a spy thriller, sci-fi epic, or living in a loft with a bunch of weird roommates, to watch TV is to imagine oneself in it as part of a bigger picture. But as so many minority actors can attest, Hollywood is quick to reality check a person’s dream of being the hero. There are stereotypes and tropes and prescribed roles that moviemakers can’t get enough of, even when they stifle a character and performer’s true potential.

All of that informs the fresh commentary and characterization of Charles Yu’s “Interior Chinatown,” based on his own novel of the same name. What if the people pushed into the periphery were aware of it, and how can they move organically into the main story?

In “Interior Chinatown,” our main character is not the hero even in his own eyes.

On a cop show, no one is supposed to be more compelling than the cops themselves. One rung below them is the crime victim, whose backstory has to be interesting enough for us to care that our heroes are trying to bring them justice, even posthumously. Still lower on the ladder are all the bit players, whose contributions to the cops’ investigation might seem insignificant, but collectively fill out the picture: the retail clerk who digs out a receipt that helps to establish a timeline; the barmaid who remembers the victim was harassed by a regular; the neighbor who heard upsetting sounds through the wall.

Comfortable though we may be with the rhythms of a detective procedural — which, after all, conform to an endlessly repeatable format — Interior Chinatown has questions. Which crime victims’ stories are selected to be told, and why? Who should tell them? And what happens when one...

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...

In Hulu‘s Interior Chinatown, we meet Willis Wu (played expertly by Silicon Valley’s Jimmy O. Yang). And Willis… he’s stuck. A waiter at the Golden Palace and a background character in police procedural Black & White, Willis tends to his elderly parents and practices kung fu between shifts, while dreaming of being a hero like the TV cops he idolizes, cool Miles Turner and smart Sarah Green (Jury Duty‘s Lisa Gilroy). He gets his chance after witnessing an abduction and helping glamorous detective Lana Lee investigate a Chinatown mystery that might also relate to Willis’ long-missing older brother. Suddenly, he’s a lead on Black & White and his life is turned upside down. “It’s like the world’s strangest cop show that at its heart is a [show about family],” says series creator Charles Yu (Westworld), who ...

Plot: Based on Charles Yu’s award-winning book of the same name, the show follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural called Black & White. Relegated to the background, Willis goes through the motions of his on-screen job, waiting tables, dreaming about a world beyond Chinatown and aspiring to be the lead of his own story. When Willis inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, he begins to unravel a criminal web in Chinatown, while discovering his own family’s buried history and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.

Review: Interior Chinatown is an interesting approach to telling a meta-fictional story. Rather than breaking the fourth wall or setting a story within a story, this series takes the approach of interconnecting characters often relegated to the background and showing how they can break free of their stereotypical and cliche constraints to...

Though the last few years have seen various Asian cultures getting more representation on screen, be it the Michelle Yeoh-led Everything Everywhere All at Once or HBO's adaptation of Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer, Asian-American storytelling is still an area not explored often enough. With Charles Yu's Interior Chinatown, he not only finally shines a light on this community, but does so in such a uniquely surreal and meta fashion that it often rises above a few of its shortcomings.

Interior Chinatown, adapted from Charles Yu's novel, follows Willis Wu, a background character in a TV police procedural. After witnessing a crime, he uncovers a criminal conspiracy in Chinatown and his family's hidden past while exploring what it means to take the lead in his own story.

Cast Lisa Gilroy, Sullivan Jones, Diana Lin, Chloe Bennet, Ronny Chieng, Jimmy O. Yang, Archie KaoCharacter(s) Lily Wu, Miles Turner,...

I didn’t really know what to expect from Interior Chinatown going in. I have not read the original novel by Charles Yu, who also serves as showrunner and executive producer for this adaptation; nor was I familiar with anything this cast had done, save for Chloe Bennet’s work on Agents of Shield.

But Taika Waititi’s involvement quickly caught my eye and the hook of an average guy roped into a massive conspiracy felt very strong to me, so I was more than willing to give it a chance. And I am very glad I did because Interior Chinatown is one of the most refreshing takes on the often played-out detective genre that I’ve seen in years. Though bear in mind that this only applies to the first five episodes, as that was what was made available to me at time of writing.

What is Interior Chinatown about?...

“Interior Chinatown” is a new live-action drama TV series based on the 2020 novel by Charles Yu, starring Jimmy O. Yang as ‘Willis Wu’, Chloe Bennet as ‘Detective Lana Lee’, Ronny Chieng as ‘Fatty Choi’, Sullivan Jones as ‘Miles Turner’, Lisa Gilroy as ‘Sarah Green’, Diana Lin as ‘Lily Wu’ and Archie Kao as ‘Uncle Wong’, streaming all 10 episodes, November 19, 2024 on Hulu:

“…background performer ‘Willis Wu’ waits on tables and occasionally works on the police procedural TV series “Black & White” as an on-camera extra.

‘But his life soon takes a turn, when he becomes witness to a crime.

“A female detective then enlists him in an investigation into a missing woman, mysterious incidents and criminal activities, while he re-discovers his own family’s buried history…”

Click the images to enlarge…...

Just a month before its debut on Hulu, the first trailer for Interior Chinatown has been released. Based on the 2020 novel of the same name by Charles Yu, who won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction, the series will follow Silicon Valleys Jimmy O. Yang as Willis Wu, who accidentally witnesses a crime and starts to discover family secrets and Chinatown's criminal underground. The cast also features Agent of Shields Chloe Bennet as Detective Lana Lee and Ronny Chieng as Fatty Choi.

Hulu has released the first official trailer for Interior Chinatown. It teases Willis' discontent with life, stuck playing clichd characters and working in the seemingly banal Golden Palace. Things take a turn when he teams up with Lana, who informally recruits him because she needs someone who knows the famed neighborhood, and Willis journey becomes dangerous, absurd, and somewhat surreal. Watch the full trailer below:

What This Means...

Exclusive: Lauren Tom (The Joy Luck Club) has joined the cast of Hulu’s Interior Chinatown from 20th Television and creator/executive producer Charles Yu, who wrote the 2020 bestseller of the same name.

Tom will recur as Betty, a successful real estate agent with a sharp suit and sharper tongue. When her assistant drags her out to look at an abandoned laundromat in Chinatown, Betty is clearly irritated, but her attitude changes when she sees her old friend (and new rival), Lily Wu.

Based on the National Book Award-winning book of the same name, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu (Jimmy O. Yang), a background character trapped in a police procedural trying to find his way into the larger story–and along the way discovers secrets about the strange world he inhabits and his family’s buried history.

Tom’s credits include Andi Mack, Trollhunters and Goliath. She...

Exclusive: Sullivan Jones and Lisa Gilroy have been cast as leads opposite Jimmy O. Yang in Interior Chinatown, a new Hulu series from creator/executive producer Charles Yu, who wrote the 2020 bestseller of the same name, Taika Waititi and 20th Television.

Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu (Yang), a background character trapped in a police procedural trying to find his way into the larger story–and along the way discovers secrets about the strange world he inhabits and his family’s buried history.

Jones and Gilroy will play Miles Turner and Sarah Green, respectively, the two lead detectives on the procedural crime show Black & White.

An expert at making flashy arrests—whenever he’s not bantering with his longtime partner Sarah Green—Turner’s seemingly perfect exterior masks someone more complex. Ambitious and hyper-competent, Green is indisputably the best detective on the force, but somehow still finds herself...