Who Is Arthur Chu?

I had never heard of Arthur Chu before, because I have never watched Jeopardy and I pay no attention to network TV.

All of that said, this is a remarkable film about a remarkable individual. It's a fly-on-the-wall, warts and all, deep dive into the lives of Arthur and his wife and his extended family.

His story has it all - immigrants striving for a better life in the US, instant fame in our media crazy world, bullying on the basis of gender, ethnicity etc and a very unlikely hero, attempting to use his new found leverage to make the world better.

I first saw Who is Arthur Chu at the LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. Not knowing much about Chu previously, I thought the film was going to be about a unique Jeopardy champion and cover topics solely relating to the gameshow, but as the film progresses it turns out to be a revealing portrait of Chu's complex life.

That the film was an official selection at Slamdance will tell you all you need to know about the film's quality, but I'll add that I personally think the film was particularly well made by the filmmakers as well. At first, Chu seems perhaps a bit distant in his personality, but a few scenes really allowed me to sympathize with him as a viewer. Specifically, there's a few scenes where we see all of the intense hatred he is forced to endure from twitter trolls that were quite shocking to me, frequently stemming form his ethnicity or him speaking out on the Gamergate controversy. Additionally, there's a scene later in the film between Arthur and his father that I found very revealing about their strained relationship and explained a lot about who Arthur is today.

I would highly recommend Who is Arthur Chu to anyone who likes documentaries, but particularly to those who are interested in themes of Asian American identity, toxic masculinity, and cyber bullying. 10/10!