Upon his birth in Hong Kong in 1949, Wayne Wang was promptly named for one of his father’s favorite American actors: John Wayne. Maybe it was inevitable, then, that the child would grow up to be a moviemaker, and that’s exactly the road Wang took.
His new independent production, Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, represents a big jump over his previous feature, Chan Is Missing, a low-budget affair that got a lot of attention but looked distressingly amateurish to this reviewer.
With Dim Sum, which like Chan is set in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Wang has gotten a lot more accomplished. The production values are higher, but there’s also an increased sense of control behind the camera: Wang seems to know just what he wants, and how to achieve it.
The simplicity of the story, and of some of the style, has been compared to the work of the Japanese filmmaker Yasujiro Ozu, who favored a still, contemplative camera to record the day-to-day victories and failures of mundane life.
Wang is up to something similar, but he brings the Ozu style into the world of McDonald’s and Dynasty (both favorites of the family seen here). The story is age-old, just the same: A girl (Lauren Chew) wonders whether she should move out and leave her mother (Kim Chew) alone, and whether she should marry her boyfriend (John Nasio).
Wang takes this simple set-up and weaves an amiable and touching little tale out of it. Most of the actors are pretty obviously non-professionals, but Victor Wong is funny as the main character’s uncle, who runs a bar and seems blissfully unconcerned about his lack of profits, and Kim Chew has great dignity as the mother – she also succeeds by virtue of looking like every mother you’ve ever seen.
Not much need be said of The Ninth Configuration, except to wonder why it is being released at this particular moment. It’s been sitting on the shelf for a good five years, apparently doomed to a cable-TV run and oblivion.
But here it is, so, for the record: It’s a preposterous thing, the brainchild of William Peter Blatty, the author of The Exorcist, who wrote, produced, and directed it. It may be about some strange military maneuvers, led by a mad killer (Stacy Keach) in a rickety old castle; but it’s probably supposed to be about some deep metaphysical questions. In fact, it tackles the big issues of existence, and – with a healthy dose of nerve on Blatty’s part – actually pretends to answer them in the final moments of the film.
It’s all quite weird, although a few good actors (Scott Wilson, Ed Flanders, Jason Miller) were talked into appearing in it. Blatty once won a Golden Globe award for his screenplay (when the film was known as Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane), which ought to forever undercut the credibility of that awards organization.
First published in The Herald, October 11, 1985
So, yeah, The Ninth Configuration has gathered quite a cult following over the years. I really should watch it again, if only for the memory that it truly was nuts. I remember the Seven Gables theater chain in Seattle gave it some kind of “Off the Shelf” screening as a cool unreleased title, along with a few other things. Not sure it was linked to this re-release. And what ever happened to the Golden Globes, huh? Wayne Wang has had a varied career, sometimes going arthouse, sometimes mainstream (and occasionally connecting with a real gem, like Smoke).
WHAT A FEELING! 