Set in San Francisco's Chinatown in the late 1950's. Pretty Mei Li has stowed away on a Chinese steamer with her professor father to become a mail-order bride for nightclub owner Sammy Fong. Sammy, however, is completely infatuated with saucy showgirl Linda Low, who is intent on making him jealous enough to propose to her. As Sammy sets out to assign his marriage contract (and Mei Li) to Wang Ta, a handsome college student living in Chinatown, complications,...

A mystery man, a murder, and a wad of missing cash in his wryly offbeat breakthrough, Wayne Wang updates the ingredients of classic film noir for the streets of contemporary San Francisco's Chinatown. When their business partner disappears with the money they had planned to use for a cab license, driver Jo and his nephew Steve scour the city's back alleys, waterfronts, and Chinese restaurants to track him down. But what begins as a search for a missing...