The Donut King

The Donut King is a 2020 documentary by Alice Gu which is on the film festival circuit in this difficult time for new films; I watched it as part of the virtual Milwaukee Film Festival, going on now. I would like to be watching a lot more movies this way, but I'm currently unemployed, and the money is running out, and the near-future a little shaky at this point. So I'm being cautious. I am grateful to have found out about this film by MFF emails—one arrived yesterday alerting my about it. The odd thing is that it was the day after I received some advance copies of my long awaited novel, The Doughnuts (and the day before it became available as an ebook—today). That kind of coincidence doesn't happen every day, so I bought a ticket and watched it alone. It's a great film, about rise of the Cambodian donut shops in Southern California, focusing mostly on a Cambodian refuge, Ted Ngoy—how he came to the US, worked as a baker, then started his own donut shop, and then kept opening franchises, and sponsoring more refugees, helping others start shops, and on and on. It starts with a bit of the history of Cambodia during the Vietnam war, and the refugee crisis at that time—a brief, but necessary, history lesson to lead into this donut saga. Then there's some history of the donut business in this country—Dunkin' Vs. Winchell's, etc., and a bit of the recent history of Los Angeles, through the donut lens. So it's also a bit of an “American Dream” saga, which is complete with the downfall chapter—linked to, yes, Las Vegas, and an addiction—yes, gambling. It's a great inspiring, hopeful, tragic, sad, and ultimately humane story—to some degree universal, but very much more rich as it focuses in on the immigrant experience, then the Cambodian immigrant story, specially, then this particular family, and finally this kind of remarkable man, Ted Ngoy. Along the way, there is plenty of visual stimulation, as well—that is, donut “porn”—even when you can't eat them, donuts are great to look at—and there's plenty of that, here. Oh, and by the way, the only place the novel, The Doughnuts, crosses over, is that it's set partly in LA, and some of the shops in the movie provide an occasional setting for scenes. If you ever wondered, like I did, what's with all the donut shops in LA?—this is your movie. It answers that mystery—plus, you get some history, humanity, and some great real-life characters, on the way.