Interior Chinatown

by

Charles Yu

Kung Fu Guy Symbol Analysis

Kung Fu Guy  Symbol Icon

In Interior Chinatown, the coveted role of Kung Fu Guy symbolizes the limits of assimilation into Western culture for Asian people. Willis indicates that Kung Fu Guy is the highest achievement that any Asian actor can achieve, and every Asian man in Chinatown wants to embody this role. Being Kung Fu Guy, everyone believes, sets a person apart from the other Asian men stuck playing generic roles like Generic Asian Man Number One or Delivery Guy. From the start, Willis makes clear how enamored he is of the role, especially since his father, Ming-Chen Wu, once held the esteemed title, playing Sifu, the Mysterious Kung Fu Master in his youth. But as Willis advances in his career, eventually earning the coveted title himself, it becomes clear that Kung Fu Guy is hardly as lifechanging as Willis once thought. Like his father before him, Willis trains nonstop and sacrifices a lot to get the role—including his marriage to Karen and, at least for a time, his relationship with their daughter, Phoebe. What’s more, he eventually realizes that Kung Fu Guy is no less generic or one-dimensional than any of the other roles Asian men are cast in—it’s simply a way to appease Asian actors with what appears to be acceptance and prestige but is really just another—albeit flashier—title that others them, defining them by their Asian background first and their identity and accomplishments second.

Kung Fu Guy Quotes in Interior Chinatown

The Interior Chinatown quotes below all refer to the symbol of Kung Fu Guy . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Immigration Theme Icon
).
Act 1: Generic Asian Man Quotes

Kung Fu Guy is not like the other slots in the hierarchy—there isn’t always someone occupying the position, as in whoever the top guy is at any given time, that’s the default guy who gets trotted out whenever there’s kung fu to be done. Only a very special Asian can be worthy of the title. It takes years of dedication and sacrifice, and after all that only a few have even a slim chance of making it. Despite the odds, you all grew up training for this and only this. All the scrawny yellow boys up and down the block dreaming the same dream.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker)
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy , Chinatown
Page Number: 26
Explanation and Analysis:

He’d played his role for so long he’d lost himself in it, before some separation that happened gradually over decades and then you waking one day to feel it, some distance that had crept in overnight. Some formal space you could no longer cross.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Sifu/Ming-Chen Wu/Old Asian Man
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 31-32
Explanation and Analysis:

Even for our hero, there were limits to the dream of assimilation, to how far any of you could make your way into the world of Black and White.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Older Brother
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy , Chinatown
Page Number: 44-45
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 2: Int. Golden Palace Quotes

Be more.

Related Characters: Dorothy/Old Asian Woman (speaker), Willis Wu
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 72
Explanation and Analysis:

Maybe they make one of us Kung Fu Guy. Maybe a few good scenes. Maybe a poster, in the back, real small. And then what?

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker)
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 76
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 3: Ethnic Recurring Quotes

“I’m working with them now. This could be good.”

“Happy for you,” he says. He looks skeptical. Worried.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Sifu/Ming-Chen Wu/Old Asian Man (speaker), Miles Turner, Sarah Green
Related Symbols: Chinatown , Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 108
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 4: Striving Immigrant Quotes

Your mother weeps, and dies. Weeps and dies. Weeps and doesn’t die. Just weeps. Because now, your father is no longer a person, no longer a human. Just some mystical Eastern force, some Wizened Chinaman. Her husband is gone, Wu is gone, even Young Asian Man is gone. They took him away from her. He is lost now, in his work, in who they made him. Distant. Cold, perfectionist. Inscrutable. No descriptors, anymore, no age or build, just a role, a name, a shell where he used to be. His features taken away and replaced by archetypes, even his face hollowing out.

This is how he became Sifu. This is how she lost her husband. How you lost your dad.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Sifu/Ming-Chen Wu/Old Asian Man, Dorothy/Old Asian Woman
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 176
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 5: Kung Fu Dad Quotes

You survey the room: drawings, hair ties, notes to herself. Seemingly every species of stuffed animal or creature, real or imagined, lined up like a royal court along the walls on the floors. Her friends, her audience. Her off-screen voices. She seems both more resourceful and yet more childlike at the same time—how she’s invented a world, stylized, so that its roles and scenery, its characters and rules, its truths and dangers, all fit within one room. How small it is, and overstuffed, and ready for expansion. How bright it is, how messy. This whole place, the objects in it, all from her.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Karen Lee , Phoebe
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy , Chinatown
Page Number: 213
Explanation and Analysis:

The words coming out of your mouth, you can feel it happening, how you’re softening, changing into a different person. You were a bit player in the world of Black and White, but here and now, in her world, you’re more. Not the star of the show, something better. The star’s dad. Somehow you were lucky enough to end up in her story.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Karen Lee , Phoebe
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy , Chinatown
Page Number: 12
Explanation and Analysis:

PHOEBE Can you tell me a story?

KUNG FU DAD I don’t know how. No one’s ever asked me to.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Phoebe (speaker), Karen Lee
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy , Chinatown
Page Number: 219
Explanation and Analysis:

KAREN You wanted them to find you.

KUNG FU DAD I wanted them to find us.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Karen Lee (speaker), Phoebe , Miles Turner, Sarah Green
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy , Chinatown
Page Number: 227
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 6: The Case of the Missing Asian Quotes

But at the same time, I’m guilty, too. Guilty of playing this role. Letting it define me. Internalizing the role so completely that I’ve lost track of where reality starts and the performance begins. And letting that define how I see other people. I’m as guilty of it as anyone. Fetishizing Black people and their coolness. Romanticizing White women. Wishing I were a White man. Putting myself into this category.

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Miles Turner, Sarah Green
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:

“Hey,” Turner says. Off-script.

“I can’t do this anymore,” you say.

Turner smiles. “Yeah, man. I know.”

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Miles Turner (speaker)
Related Symbols: Chinatown , Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 266
Explanation and Analysis:
Act 7: Ext. Chinatown Quotes

Maybe, if you’re lucky, she’ll teach you. If she can move freely between worlds, why can’t you?

Related Characters: Willis Wu (speaker), Sifu/Ming-Chen Wu/Old Asian Man, Phoebe
Related Symbols: Kung Fu Guy
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Interior Chinatown LitChart as a printable PDF.
Interior Chinatown PDF

Kung Fu Guy Symbol Timeline in Interior Chinatown

The timeline below shows where the symbol Kung Fu Guy appears in Interior Chinatown. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Act 1: Generic Asian Man
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...between scripted scenes and reality. INT. GOLDEN PALACE. Willis Wu has longed to be “ Kung Fu Guy ” his whole life, but he’s currently just “Background Oriental Male.” On a casting sheet,... (full context)
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...One,” though this is rare. But if you’re really lucky, you get to become “ Kung Fu Guy ,” which is the closest to a movie star any Asian man can get. He’s... (full context)
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...to work his way up from “Generic Asian Man.” He was born to be “ Kung Fu Guy ” and eventually became him. He makes Kung Fu Guy money, too. (full context)
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...was supposed to for Older Brother. But then one day, it all stopped: he wasn’t Kung Fu Guy anymore. It was because “there were limits to the dream of assimilation,” and he’d hit... (full context)
Act 2: Int. Golden Palace
Immigration Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...Asian, but Willis doesn’t care—he just watches for the martial arts. He imagines he’s a Kung Fu Guy in training: Kung Fu Kid. He announces to his mother that he’s going to be... (full context)
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...that night. She looks at him with caring eyes and tells him not to be Kung Fu Guy when he grows up—“Be more.” (full context)
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...what this means. Willis says that even if one of the Generic Asian Men becomes Kung Fu Guy , it won’t really make a difference—things will just go back to the way they... (full context)
Act 3: Ethnic Recurring
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...compliments his footwork and says they could maybe use him in undercover vice—maybe even as Kung Fu Guy . Then she whispers in Willis’s ear to let her talk to the detectives. (full context)
Act 4: Striving Immigrant
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
One day, the director speaks with Willis and tells him he’ll be Kung Fu Guy any day now. Willis comes home to share the news with Karen, but she’s got... (full context)
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...in Willis, but she just doesn’t think “they” are ever going to give him the Kung Fu Guy role: so far, it’s just empty promise after empty promise. She tells Willis she doesn’t... (full context)
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...he gets a call from the director with the news he’s been waiting for: he’s Kung Fu Guy . But it doesn’t feel as good as he thought it would—not with no Karen... (full context)
Act 5: Kung Fu Dad
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
INT. PHOEBE’S ROOM—MORNING. Phoebe opens the door and sees Willis (as Kung Fu Dad ). “Daddy!” she shouts. He says he misses her and apologizes that it’s been so... (full context)
Act 6: The Case of the Missing Asian
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...and the light is focused on him. Willis explains that he’s always wanted to be Kung Fu Guy and has practiced for years to achieve that dream. Then, when he finally got the... (full context)
Immigration Theme Icon
Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...spent most of his life trapped in Interior Chinatown. Then he got out and became Kung Fu Dad . But that wasn’t a real improvement—it was “just another role.” And he can’t keep... (full context)
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Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
INT. GOLDEN PALACE CHINESE RESTAURANT—NIGHT. Green and Turner look down on Kung Fu Guy ’s body and observe that he is dead. A crime scene investigator takes samples. Turner... (full context)
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Performance and Identity  Theme Icon
Stereotypes Theme Icon
Family and Ambition Theme Icon
The System Theme Icon
...over him. She kisses him. Phoebe is there too. She asks if Willis is still Kung Fu Guy . Willis says no—now, she’s just her dad. Black and White is packing up, preparing... (full context)