Word: chinatown
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...noon in New York 600 policemen in riot gear, on horseback, in helicopters and on rooftops milled above and about Chinatown. State Department officials and representatives from China's liaison office joined other Chinese, Americans and Chinese-Americans in staging a ceremony honoring normalization. Meanwhile, supporters of Taiwan stood nearby clutching furled and unfurled Taiwanese flags as they waited their turn to demonstrate later in the afternoon. At that moment things were peaceful, though confused...
Drugs and thugs, a missing person and a backchatting investigator also dominate Cocaine and Blue Eyes. Fred Zackel's sprightly first novel, set mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, combines the story of a Pacific Heights dynasty, corporate shenanigans, Chinatown gangs, a spectrum of sex, aging flower children, Mafia money and the houseboat life in Sausalito. The result is as nerve-rattling as a full-throttle auto chase from Grant Avenue to Fisherman's Wharf...
...dead, the down-at-heels p.i. takes on the posthumous assignment. Dani, it develops, belongs to a wealthy Faulknerian family held together by booze, barbiturates, bitterness, incest and greed. Brennen finally finds the girl (also mysteriously dead) and discovers that the family business is being run by a homosexual Chinatown lawyer and his epicene "nephew." The nephew is quietly siphoning off cash to finance a cocaine-smuggling operation, and the tale moves to a bewildering but believable showdown. His publisher reports that Sausalito-based Zackel is working on a second novel, which on the evidence should be as welcome...
...sauce. Some dishes, such as egg fu yung and fried rice, are familiar to Americans, since at least 90% of all Chinese food served in the U.S. is based on Cantonese recipes. But the real meal in China - Peking duck, for example - could not be mistaken for one in Chinatown, U.S.A. Almost all Cantonese dishes are steamed or stir-fried. Texture and flavor are not masked by heavy sauces that elsewhere can disguise unfresh ingredients. In Canton, they say, the shrimp come wiggling to the table...
...least some restraint. Then again, anyone would look calm playing opposite Dunaway. With her bulging, teary eyes and fluttery voice, this actress is a one-woman band of neurotic gestures. It is a tiresome performance that will be particularly grating on anyone who has seen the mannerisms previously in Chinatown and Network. Dunaway does, however, have the only credible line in the movie. It occurs midway through her love scene, when she announces, "I'm completely out of control." - Frank Rich