Chan Is Missing - Bus Stop
Director Wang trained a camera on a bus stop to capture the ebb and flow of the activity there. For a minute and a half we are voyeurs as shoppers pass by and make their way in and out of the two stores. Waiting passengers gaze expectantly in the direction of the oncoming bus in hopes it will hasten its arrival. The GIF below is a brief representation.
Then … the clue to finding this location was the brick detail highlighted below; fortunately it’s still there today. The bus stop was on the west side of Stockton Street near Jackson alongside a restaurant and a flower shop.
… and Now, here’s that location today. The rectangle outlines the movie frame’s field of view; the oval outlines two vertical columns of bricks, now partly covered with security bars but the exposed left column matches Then and Now. On the right Wellman’s Pharmacy at 1053 Stockton was the Lai Wah Florist when Chan was filmed while the restaurant on the left was then, and still is, the Gourmet Kitchen at 1051 Stockton.
That same bus stop was the subject of a wide angle 1970s photo by Bob Eckert Photography, perfectly capturing the diurnal hustle and bustle of Chinatown. But you won’t find the bus stop at this location now, it’s been moved south one block.
Interesting trivia - the movie Petulia was filmed here twelve years before Chan. It included a scene showing Julie Christie shopping on Stockton Street in Chinatown. The boutique on the left, street number 1053, was the Lai Wah flower shop seen above (the Chinese characters on the window say so and the phone number was the flower shop’s number) repurposed for this scene to complement the colorful fruit stand next to it.
Undulating waves and ripples fills the screen, capturing Jo’s confusion as he admits he no longer knows who Chan Hung really is. He recounts one by one in voiceover how everybody he has asked remembers Chan as a completely different person. Is he real or is he really the embodiment of the Chinatown community?
Then … Jo muses on while driving along Grant Avenue. Just as in the movie’s opening scene the sidewalk storefronts pass by horizontally while concurrently the upper floors of the buildings, reflected and flipped 90 degrees by the steeply raked windshield, overlap and slide by vertically.
… and Now, he was passing the elaborately oriental-styled building on the corner of Grant and Clay, home of the Soo Yuen Benevolent Association and the Louie Fong and Fong Family Association. This corner had also been seen earlier in the movie.