Serving Up a Winning ‘Combination’ : Movies: Now that Asian films have acquired a certain cachet, Tony Chan hopes his acclaimed debut feature will join the list--and open doors.

About Tony Chan, there’s good news and bad news.

First, the good news: “Combination Platter,” the New York-based director’s debut feature about illegal immigrants in a Chinese restaurant, has gotten a warm critical reception in the cities where it’s already been seen--it will open in Los Angeles Jan. 28 at the Sunset 5--as well as at the dozen or so international film festivals it’s visited. And when Chan makes his next film, he probably won’t have to drag the same print around to every one of them.

“It’s pretty dirty now,” Chan says. “It’s got a lot of mileage on it.”

Also, the situation for Asian American filmmakers has improved enormously since Chan borrowed $100,000 or so from his parents, shot most of his film at night in their Queens restaurant--which, Chan has to admit, saved him a lot on catering--took it to last year’s Sundance Film Festival where it got great word-of-mouth and was still virtually the last film there to find a distributor.

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“Two years ago, I couldn’t have shown anyone my film,” said Chan, 25, who shared the Waldo Salt screenwriting award at Sundance with his writing partner, Edwin Baker. “And if someone had asked me what’s the most successful Asian American film, I couldn’t tell them. I couldn’t name one.”

That’s changed, of course, which is more good news. With the success of Wayne Wang’s “The Joy Luck Club” and Ang Lee’s “The Wedding Banquet,” the critical acclaim afforded Hong Kong action wizard John Woo, and mainland directors like Chen Kaige (“Farewell My Concubine”) and Zhang Yimou (“Raise the Red Lantern”), films with and by Asians have acquired a certain cachet. That they happen to be good films doesn’t hurt.

“Sometimes, I think things run in cycles,” Chan said. “Why in the ‘60s, for instance, was French New Wave so popular? But I think Asian Americans have a unique cultural background. I’m bilingual. I lived in Hong Kong till I was 13 and then I moved here. So our background is really unique, and our films reflect it.

“Unless there’s another Asian American filmmaker whose parents own a restaurant, there isn’t going to be another ‘Combination Platter.’ ”

Oh, yes, the bad news. When Chan was writing “Combination Platter,” he spent a month and a half--six days a week, seven to eight hours a day--working on the screenplay. Because of that long effort, he’s been a tad slow getting his next script rolling.

“It’s going to be a ghost story, a Chinatown ghost story, but I’m still writing,” he said, sitting in the offices of Bluehorse Films, his production company in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. “But everyone always said, you make an independent film, and you spend the next eight months promoting it. I mean, it’s you they want to talk to. It’s not like we have Tom Cruise.”

He does, however, have Jeff Lau, who since making “Combination Platter” has returned to his job as a stockbroker. (“It’s a pretty good job,” Chan says. “And how many roles are there for Asian men?”) But Lau leaves an indelible impression as Robert, the film’s main character and an illegal immigrant from Hong Kong caught in a vortex of conflicted beliefs, biases and ambitions.

Desperately seeking a green card, he tries to arrange a show marriage, first with a Chinese American woman who tries to extort him, then with a white woman named Claire (Colleen O’Brien), who agitates his xenophobic instincts. At the same time, the atmosphere within the restaurant, which serves as an incubator for misshapen American dreams, is poisoned by the strained relations among the waiters, all of whom come from Hong Kong, and the kitchen staff, all of whom are mainlanders. Adding to the tension is the fact that they can’t really communicate because of their differing dialects.

Language is a crucial concept for Chan, both in his story and his life; as a young man, he says, he was drawn to the visual because of the language barrier he faced as a new American. On the other hand, the cultural barriers faced by--and erected by--immigrants of all stripes is something he has tried to help, in his small way, to tear down.

He likes the idea that there might be other Tony Chans out there, trying to make their first film, needing money--and because of “Combination Platter” might have a better chance of getting some. “Now, at least, somebody’s got a track record,” he says.

The press roller-coaster is about to end on “Combination Platter,” so Chan can get back to writing. “I may even get a part-time job in Chinatown,” he said. No, he said: no food, no restaurants, no immigration. But a job in Chinatown would allow him to research that ghost story he wants to make.

“Anything I write is going to have something to do with Asians,” he said, “although I’m open. If someone offers me a screenplay that had nothing to do with Asians, but it was great and I could identify with it, it would be foolish to pass up the opportunity.”

He wouldn’t want to make “Moonstruck.” But, then again, he says, “No one ever asks why Bertolucci did ‘The Last Emperor.’ ”