In real life, most of us are likely to be a background character, but for a select few, they can at least see themselves as heroes in the fictional world, due to a set of circumstances that none of us really get to control. Because of these images, they are encouraged to try to break out of the background and dare to do some good for the world… Or at least their own community. Interior Chinatown plays on the way Hollywood has excluded and stereotyped Asian Americans, by taking the original screenplay-formatted novel’s meta visually. Showrunner (and original novellist) Charles Wu plays with color and light, with genre expectations, and with the humorous ways the lead Willis tries to figure out the fictional world he lives in, a world that satirically uses classic film noir stereotypes to comment on real-life discrimination. INT. CHINATOWN rewrites the stories Asian Americans have been told to, into something completely new.

Each episode title is the role Willis learns to play, and it’s just a novel way to structure the entire series.