Origin Story

This insightful and deeply moving documentary tells the story of a Lao-American woman's search for her father and her relationship with her mother. It deals with many difficult subjects like personal identity, familial relationships, the effects of the secret war on Laos, gambling addiction, and love. Really well-done and personal. I cried while watching and then kept thinking about it for days. Incredible and important.

As a long time listener of Who Charted I could not wait for this film. It premiered at the Bentonville film festival and it blew me away. Both as a fan of Kulap Vilaysack and as a filmmaker. Incredible story. Incredible film.

I started watching this because I've heard Kulap guest on a podcast I like and she's funny. I was immediately turned off when she acts like it's weird being interviewed but she's the one who hired someone to interview her. Then later some buried rage comes out during another interview and she starts throwing stuff around and turns a chair over, that's when I started laughing. She's so enraged that she starts tearing the room up but she doesn't touch her laptop. It's hilarious. Usually a documentary about a person happens because a filmmaker finds someone and their story so compelling that they have to make a film about them. In this case Kulap thinks she and her story are so interesting that a film needs to be made about it all. Wrong.

I've followed Kulap for a while now. (Who Charted, Bajillion Dollar Propertie$) I usually don't like documentaries like this. Too depressing. This on the other hand was very good. I have a hard time staying glued to the TV for a feature length movie but I managed to watch all of this at once. This is a must see for Kulap fans and also for people who like to see what would happen if you actually looked for and found one of your birth parents. Very well done.

I thought the celebrity aspect of this story would make it more interesting but it was pretty boring. I suppose if you're a fan of her work it would make it feel more personal and intriguing, but if you aren't, it sounds like a whiney, whoa is me story from a person who doesn't seem like they have much else to complain about.