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?

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.

The title takes a shot at another threadworm screen trope about Chinatowns, as hotbeds of crime and corruption, captured long ago in the classic line: Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.

Ronny Chieng and Chloe Bennet also star in Charles Yu’s adaptation of his own acclaimed 2020 novel, about an unassuming waiter who gets caught up in a cold case involving his missing brother.

The novel "Interior Chinatown" is formatted like a script, taking its title from the screenwriting convention of beginning scenes by indicating whether they take place indoors or out. Its author, Charles Yu,