Film
The Donut King
The Donut King is a 2020 feature documentary by Alice Gu about Ted Ngoy, the Cambodian refugee who built a donut business in California.[1][2] It was Gu's first feature as a director.[2]
Synopsis
Bun Tek "Ted" Ngoy escaped Cambodia and arrived in the United States in 1975.[3] He opened his first donut shop in Orange County, and his Christy's Doughnuts grew into a fast-expanding chain.[2] Over the next decade he sponsored hundreds of visas for Cambodian refugees, gave them work in his shops and taught them the donut business.[2][3] The film also credits him with bringing in the pink donut box, first as a way to save money.[4] It states that by the 1990s Cambodian families owned 80 percent of the donut shops in California.[4]
The film follows Ngoy's rise from refugee to millionaire and his later loss of that fortune.[5] He revisits his former mansion in Mission Viejo, and his older children, Chet and Savy, are interviewed.[6] The story moves between Ngoy's life and the present-day lives of second- and third-generation Cambodian American shop owners and workers, a group Gu calls "Donut Generation 2.0."[6] The film opens with Mayly Tao, a 29-year-old owner of DK Donuts & Bakery, which her mother founded in the early 1980s.[4] Refugees in the film share their memories of life under the Khmer Rouge in the mid-1970s, and many of them call Ngoy "Uncle Ted."[4]
Production and credits
While researching Cambodian donuts, Gu learned about Ngoy.[1] She contacted him and other Cambodian families who ran donut shops, and filming began within six weeks.[1] She used Ngoy's memoir as her starting point and persuaded him to return to California for the film.[5][1] The crew shot on and off over eight to ten months, with a largely do-it-yourself approach, and the script took shape during production as new people and stories came to light.[5]
Gu directed the film and was its cinematographer.[2] Carol Martori is credited as the writer, and Gu and Martori share the screenplay credit in festival listings.[1][7] Carol Martori and Rommel Mendoza edited it, and Peter Lauridsen composed the music.[1] Farhad Amid, Tom Moran, José I. Nuñez and Gu produced it. Ridley Scott, Freida Lee Mock, Andrés Rosillo, Juliana Lemus and Jonny Hwang were executive producers.[2] Logan Industry produced the film in association with Scott Free Productions.[2] Andrew Hem created the animation and the poster art, and Chapeau Studios provided design and visual effects, with animation by 1881 Animation.[2] The Cambodia crew included field producer Mout Iv and sound mixer Bong Kha.[2] The Center for Asian American Media co-presented the film.[2]
The film is in English, Mandarin and Cambodian, with English subtitles.[6] The CAAMFest listing gives a running time of 94 minutes; IMDb gives 90 minutes.[3][8]
Release and reception
The film was selected for the Documentary Feature Competition at SXSW in 2020, and the festival was canceled that year.[3] Wikipedia dates its SXSW premiere to August 24, 2020.[1] It received the SXSW Film Festival Special Jury Award for Documentary Feature, Best Documentary Feature at the San Diego Asian Film Festival, and the Emerging Director Award for Documentary at the Asian American International Film Festival.[2] At the 2020 Sun Valley Film Festival it won the Special Jury Prize for Excellence in Documentary Storytelling and the One in a Million Award, and it won the Grand Jury Prize at the Bentonville Film Festival.[3]
The Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival streamed the film on May 23 and 24, 2020, co-presented with the Cambodia Town Film Festival, which hosted a conversation with Gu and Ngoy on May 22.[9] A limited theatrical release followed on October 30, 2020, including Regency South Coast Village in Santa Ana, and streaming began on November 20, 2020.[10][11] CAAMFest held a virtual Indie Lens Pop-Up screening on May 19, 2021, and Independent Lens premiered the film on PBS on May 24, 2021.[3][2]
Metacritic gave the film a score of 69 out of 100.[1] Richard Whittaker of The Austin Chronicle praised how Gu built Ngoy's life story from interviews and archival and present-day footage.[1] Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave it three out of four stars and called it heartwarming but scattered.[1] The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus calls it a rags-to-riches story with substantial historical scope.[10]
At the Cambodia Town Film Festival
The film was shown at the Cambodia Town Film Festival in Long Beach, California.
- 2020: virtual edition.[7]
Watch
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 Wikipedia, The Donut King
- ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 Independent Lens, The Donut King - Independent Lens - PBS (2025-01-14)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 CAAMFest 2021, THE DONUT KING (2021-05-19)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 RogerEbert.com, The Donut King movie review (2020)
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Script Magazine, Interview: "Donut King" documentary filmmaker Alice Gu (2020-11-03)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Daily Pilot, 'The Donut King' documentary release makes an O.C. homecoming (2020-11-05)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Cambodian Moments, Cambodia Town Film Festival Virtual Edition (September 16, 2020)
- ↑ IMDb, The Donut King (2020)
- ↑ Eventive, The Donut King, Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival Virtual
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Rotten Tomatoes, The Donut King - Rotten Tomatoes (2020-10-21)
- ↑ Los Angeles Times, 'The Donut King' review: A Shakespearean SoCal tragedy (2020-10-29)