MoPoshy
Absolutely brilliant
AnhartLinkin
This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.
Allison Davies
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
Zandra
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Ersbel Oraph
Better read the Wikipedia page. It has all the information in a shorter form. As the whole documentary is about 5 minutes long. The rest is fluff. With relevant testimonies that are probably supposed to enhance the archaeological abilities of a lazy, yet greedy production team. The testimonies are as relevant as "I remember I've just got off the Grayhound and was attracted by the neon sign and surely I was eating chop su..." What? Yea, even the food reference is about something else! And what has the prejudice has anything to do with the food? Was it originally made with urine?Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.ch
ksf-2
A fun and funny look at General Tso's chicken... how it's spelled, what he looked like, and what the heck is in it. We hear from menu collectors, people on the street, and restaurant owners, both American and Chinese. In hunan, we see a house which theoretically belonged to general tso. We even met a great grandson of "the general" who laments that all his ancestor is known for is the menu item. A Jewish guys talks about the odd link between Jewish families finding something to do on protestant holidays-- going out to eat Chinese food. Gengis Cohen. That's funny. The irony that the low wage workers can help build our railroads, but were treated as second class citizens for so long. Of course, they include Nixon visiting china, which helped bring back the popularity of Chinese food, and that seems to be about the time that the dish started appearing in America.Ian Cheney writes, directs, and narrates this interesting look at one single item from the Chinese food restaurant menu. An interesting mix of man on the street interviews, people taking guesses at that they think is the truth, as well as some actual historians of Chinese historians, from museums and universities. This is the first one of his projects that I have seen.... i'll have to check out his other numerous films. That's also an interesting list. This one is very comfortable. We hear many statements, some of which may be true, but it's too bad it wasn't made more clear what was true and what was opinion, or lore. Certainly entertaining....it made me want to go out for Chinese food!
gavin6942
Who was General Tso, and why are we eating his chicken? This feature documentary explores the origins and ubiquity of Chinese-American food through the story of an iconic sweet and spicy chicken dish.One of the first things viewers will notice are the pronunciation issues. Just as there are many spellings, there are also many pronunciations of Tso. The most common seems to be "so" or "sew", but "tau" and others come up, with no clear winner.Although the core of this doc is tracking down who Tso was and what he has to do with chicken, there is a secondary message: one of Chinese assimilation to America, and how there have been hiccups over the years, particularly during the Korean War.
anji2
As someone who loves authentic mainland Chinese cuisine and is consistently perplexed by the Chinese dishes here in USA I was delighted to see this film on the big screen at the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) and was not in the least disappointed. The film delves into the history of how and why Americanized Chinese dishes and restaurants spread from San Francisco to the East Coast and also briefly delves into China's banquet culture and the history of the General himself. The only thing missing from this film for me was some kind of explanation of the extreme use of MSG in dishes such as General Tso's Chicken but hopefully the directors will take that subject and make a sequel! The style, pace and commentary were all great.
