Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
From New York City to the farmlands of the Midwest, there are 50,000 Chinese restaurants in the U.S., yet one dish in particular has conquered the American culinary landscape with a force befitting its military moniker—“General Tso’s Chicken.” But who was General Tso and how did this dish become so ubiquitous? Ian Cheney’s delightfully insightful documentary charts the history of Chinese Americans through the surprising origins of this sticky, sweet, just-spicy-enough dish that we’ve adopted as our own.
A genuinely charming and inventive food documentary that uses a single dish as a lens to explore Chinese-American immigration history. Its central conceit is original and surprisingly rich, earning high marks for novelty. The cinematography is competent and warm but not exceptional. Since it's a documentary, 'acting' applies loosely to interview subjects and narration—serviceable but unremarkable. The narrative builds engagingly but loses momentum toward the end, failing to deliver a truly satisfying conclusion to its mystery. Overall a delightful, distinctively conceived film that punches above its weight in originality.