Interior Chinatown

Willis must stand trial in “the case of the missing Asian.” The courtroom scene seems a little over the top from his perspective as a bit player. The judge flirts with the prosecutor while the prosecutor flirts with Detective Green.

Much to Willis’s surprise, his defense attorney is Older Brother, who has left Chinatown to attend law school. The script has gone completely off the rails since the original premise of Black and White was that Older Brother was the missing person. Because he only disappeared to attend law school, he points out that no crime has been committed.

However, the prosecutor now says that the missing Asian is Willis. The defendant asks if he’s the suspect or the victim. The court doesn’t know but wants to sort out the facts. The fictional story of Black and White begins to bleed into Willis’s real-life issues with racial inferiority. He sees the gallery of the courtroom filling up with tenants from the SRO. His mother is there, as is Karen.

Turner takes the stand and accuses Willis of self-pity. “Don’t you need to take some responsibility for yourself? For the categories you put us in? Black and White? I mean, come on? Do you think you’re the only one who’s trapped?” (224-25).

Older Brother makes a dizzying number of verbal arguments and concludes by stating that the law itself is unfit to judge a case that doesn’t fit its dominant paradigm of black or white. He finally concludes by saying, “He is guilty, Your Honor, and ladies and gentlemen of the jury. Guilty of wanting to be part of something that never wanted him” (239).

The jury finds Willis guilty of self-imprisonment. Willis stands up to make a statement. He agrees with the verdict and says, “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” (246). As Willis continues to declaim the plight of Asian people forced to play the same role, he gets the gallery all fired up.

A kung fu fight breaks out in the courtroom in which Willis, Older Brother, and the gallery spectators defend themselves against the police. Willis is dazzled by the perfect grace of his own king fu moves until he hears a gun go off and realizes that he’s been fatally shot as part of the script.

The scene switches to a subsequent day of filming at the Golden Palace, where Willis once again plays an anonymous dead Asian man. Off script, he tells Turner he can’t do this kind of work anymore. Black and White is wrapping up its location work at the Golden Palace. None of the locals have roles to play, but Willis is interested in the new role of becoming Phoebe’s dad and Karen’s ex ex-husband. 

Willis is back at the Golden Palace, watching as his father talks to Phoebe. He feels a bittersweet connection to the place and to the old man. He thinks, “Same small space. This place preserved as if in amber. Like a museum, a presentation of a time and place that always exist, and never did” (265).

Willis realizes that his father’s fate won’t be his own. He’s learned a valuable lesson about moving beyond the character he was cast to play. He hopes his daughter can show him a better way to be. “You didn’t know then what you know now. Maybe, if you’re lucky, she’ll teach you. If she can move freely between worlds, why can’t you?” (268).

Willis and Phoebe watch as Sifu takes the karaoke mike to sing a John Denver song about home. Willis feels a sense of hope that he may have finally found the place where he belongs, even if his father never will.