AllMovie

Who Killed Vincent Chin? is, on the surface, a rhetorical question. The two men who were involved in beating him to death with a baseball bat were easily identified. But as Chin looks into the case, the question does indeed take on a deeper meaning. Who, or what, is ultimately responsible for Chin's death? Is it the blind bigotry that takes root among some people, so that the men who killed the Chinese Chin did so because they assumed he was Japanese (and that therefore their actions were somehow justified)? Is it the inability of the American economic system to provide sufficient work for large pockets of blue collar workers? Is it the American justice system, which produces a judge who can say that the fatal bludgeoning of a man doesn't really amount to a "brutal" murder? Is it language, is it willful blindness, is it double standards? Director Christine Choy presents all these options and more, and yet in the process never overlooks the human side of a tragedy that became a media cause. Among the many frightening, sad, tragic, incredible and ignorant comments and observations heard throughout the film, none can match the intense and inwardly terrifying interview with Chin's mother. If the documentary at times comes across as a bit heavyhanded, it is still an important examination of a single tragic incident as a microcosm for the complicated ills that America still must learn how to deal with.