The Donut King

Beautifully crafted, emotionally engaging, and filled in some of the blanks with my Cambodia in the 70s history. An Excellent Insight into an overlooked community. Powerful film that is certainly worth the 1.5 hour investment.

Ted Ngoy is the Donut King. This documentary tells his story and the story of Cambodian refugees opening independent donut shops throughout southern California.

This is standard biopic of a successful refugee for the first thirty minutes. He comes from nothing and becomes a big success. It's a good solid immigrant story and a fun insight into 80's Cali. I did not see the turn coming. It's a very human story and that is the movie's greatest strength. The man has both good and bad. It's a struggle that is in all of us.

If you think this is about donuts, it is only half a story. Actually, it is more about life. Throughout all the ups and downs, there is peace in the end.

Most Asian people do not feel comfortable to wash their dirty laundry in front of others. This one indeed did that and even dug deeper. There are not many movies about Asian Americans' struggle and trimphone, This one has a well planted storyline and contents. To the end, I did not feel sorry for the donut king. He found peace in life and moved on. Life is the process itself. Most of time, we are too eager to get to the final and forget to enjoy the scenery on the way.

It is a nice film to watch without pretenses. I would recommend.

As this well-paced and engaging makes clear, there are a great variety of donuts. That said the quintessential donut is an item defined by its absence, and that emptiness is precisely located at the center of it.

You can glaze it, cover it with sprinkles but still the hole remains.

Perhaps a touch too philosophical for this film?, Then again consider the Donut King, and how heavy his doughy crown weighs upon him after watching this.

As I get older it sure is hard to separate the sweet and the sour. This film packs in a lot of heartache within an overall optimistic outlook, no small feat considering the impetus for the Cambodian donut diaspora. 4 million out of 7 million.

The scenes (animated but nonetheless harrowing) of the separation of families paired with the graceful grit of Chuong Pek Lee were part of this assorted box of tales, including several forays into freakonomic flavors (the corporate interviews were so wonderfully out of place with the Mom and Pop shop shots). Pink box supply chain moves, instagram flash mobs, Midas touches, one-armed bandits, child labor, a blood-oath bond broken and more.

Savor the flavor, but respect the holes in history and your own soul as well.

How a poor non english speaking refugee can come to AMerica and in a short time become very successful. Their secret? Family. Hard working family... The family all works together to achieve the success of all. The failure of the family structure in America (mainly due to massive welfare handouts by the government) has put being American-born a huge disadvantage . Being born an American is no longer an asset, but a disadvantage. Notice how all the small children pitched in and helped. None of them went looking for free handouts.