What's Wrong with Frank Chin?

Frank Chin's reputation as a scary critic precedes him, and the resulting public ignorance and inability to discuss his work makes all of us the poorer for it. This "novel documentary" (perhaps a twist on Chin's description of his recent book as a "documentary novel") makes the brave attempt to encapsulate Chin's lifetime of achievements into 97 minutes, and shows Chin to be the brilliant, complex, contradictory genius that he is. It opens with him reading from his play "The Year of The Dragon", and ends with him reading from "Born in The USA". In between is archival footage of his early agit-prop theater days, his passion to find earlier Asian American writers that led to the seminal anthology "Aiiieeeee!", and his jaw-dropping hippie wedding ceremony. A long chapter is cheekily devoted to the war between Chin and Maxine Kingston and other writers he takes to task for passing off made-up mythology for sale in the marketplace. His largely unknown contribution to the Japanese American redress movement is made clear for the first time. Not only does this documentary reveal what's right about Frank Chin, it is a call to all of us to open our eyes, hearts, and mouths and go do something.