I’ve always had an interest in Charlie Chan and I’ve been told by Guest Offender/playwright David Henry Hwang and a couple of other friends that Yunte Huang’s new book Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History is a fascinating read so I’m looking forward to picking it up later this week to check out for myself.

From the description, it sounds like the book not only covers the history of the fictional Chinese detective best known for spouting bits of chinky fortune cookie wisdom, but also the lives of the men who gave him life: Caucasian creator Earl Derr Biggers, real-life Hawaii detective Chang Apana who was the inspiration for the character and yellow face actor Warner Oland who may arguably be the best known cinematic Chan (as well as telling the story of Huang himself and his own obsession with this subject).

Although Asian actors have portrayed Charlie Chan in a few Hollywood incarnations—the now lost early attempts by Sojin and George Kuwa, and Keye Luke in the 1970s TV cartoon series The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan—the role is most identified by the numerous white actors (including Oland) who donned yellow face to play the part. The last big screen incarnation was 1981’s god awful Charlie Chan and the Curse of the Dragon Queen starring the very white Peter Ustinov as the titular detective.

So why would I want to see a new film version of a character that most in our community might consider the epitome of Asian stereotyping?

Because when you strip away all the racist superficial trappings of the series, at its core you have an interesting character and relationship: an old school Chinese detective who is indeed smarter than all the white people around him and his relationship with his very “new” school, Americanized #1 Son.

For me, the father-son dynamic was always what set this series apart from others in the genre and being from an Asian immigrant family, I identified with that relationship. Granted, it was only fleshed out in the most superficial ways in the various film incarnations, but I think the seed for something much richer is inherent in the material. Get rid of the stereotypes, cast real Asian actors and approach the project as a legitimate contemporary thriller in the vein of Christopher Nolan’s reinvention of Batman or the Bourne films.

(FYI, there have been recent failed attempts to revive the character, most notably by famed playwright David Mamet and a gender-bending version to have starred Lucy Liu. However, David Henry Hwang tells me that the old rumors that he was developing a version of the story for actor B.D. Wong following their M. Butterfly triumph was just a myth, but one that he himself admits to furthering in his own play Yellow Face.)

Which brings me to another fictional character that makes an appearance in Huang’s book—Fu Manchu, or as Huang dubs him…Charlie Chan’s “evil twin.” If Chan was the “good” Asian stereotype, Fu Manchu was pure evil—out to destroy no less than the white race itself.

Maybe you can make an argument for reviving Charlie Chan, but it would seem harder to justify a new big-screen version of such a one-dimensional racist character like Fu Manchu.

I thought that way too until I saw 1929’s The Mysterious Fu Manchu (once again starring Oland in yellow face). The film tells the origin of the character: Fu Manchu is a Chinese doctor who is an ally to the British. When the Boxer Rebellion breaks out, the British promise to protect Fu and his family if he will be loyal to them. But they betray him and slaughter his wife and young son. It is this incident that leads him to vow revenge against the Brits who wronged him.

Now the film is full of its share of awful stereotypes, but what it also did was make me sympathize with Fu’s character. It gave him a real motivation for his “evil’ actions. I could completely identify—hell, if someone did the same thing to my family, I’d probably seek vengeance too.

Again, it’s not fully realized in the film, but the seeds of an interesting character are there. He is a tragic figure like Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone in The Godfather—he commits these violent acts in the name of his family, but doesn’t realize until it’s too late that he has turned into a monster in the process.

I think there’s a reason why these two characters have endured over so many years. The “Oriental exoticism” they possess may have gotten early audiences initially curious about them, but I think they’ve only lasted as long as they have because there is a genuine depth to them. Plus, they are both proven “brands” and in today’s Hollywood, that may be the only way to get a major feature starring Asians green-lit. You have to remember that in their time, these films were box-office behemoths (the equivalent of, say, the James Bond series today) and the success of the Charlie Chan films is credited with saving 20th Century Fox in the 1930s.

Which finally leads me to this…

My dream project:

A film featuring both Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu. It’d be awesome—the iconic “good” Asian pitted against the iconic “bad” Asian. Both are Chinese patriarchs. Both are brilliant (i.e. smarter than the white folk around them). One is on the side of the white man. One is out to destroy the white man. Both have sons they have “lost.” One son has died at the hands of the white man. One son has turned his back on his traditional Asian heritage and everything that represents.

You can also bring the story into the 21st Century. We all know that China is the emerging superpower of our time and that could provide the foundation of the story. Charlie Chan (a.k.a. Chow Yun Fat) is a modern Chinese detective using all the advanced technology and skills at his disposal to solve his cases while trying to mend his estranged relationship with his Chinese American son. Fu Manchu (a.k.a. Ken Watanabe—yes, I know he’s Japanese but he’d be perfect) is the head of a powerful Chinese corporation out to use his vast resources to destroy the Western civilization (while mourning the murder of his son by an American corporate rival which sets his plan for vengeance in motion) and the only person who can stop him is…of course, Charlie Chan.

I don’t know about you, but that’s a movie I’d love to see.