By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 5 cats
Director: Ian Cheney
Country: china, taiwan, united_states
Year: 2015
Running time: 79
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3576038/combined
Kyle says: “Anyone who dines on Chinese cuisine with any regularity has sampled General Tso’s Chicken. In fact, writer/director Ian Cheney of THE SEARCH FOR GENERAL TSO suggests it is the single most popular ethnic cuisine item in America aside from pizza. This amateur Chinese cook and fan of many styles of Chinese cuisine, who has spent countless hours in New York’s Chinatown, uses two dishes as restaurant litmus tests: Hot and Sour Soup, and General Tso’s Chicken. They have almost never steered me wrong. Having often wondered which Hong Kong historical epic included the original General Tso, I have wavered between conviction he was a real person and certainty he was a fictional construct.
“This delightful documentary is tailor-made for a viewer like me, and highly recommended to foodies, since it is as much about cuisine as it is about the American immigrant experience. Dozens of people are interviewed theorizing about who General Tso was, what he ate, and how he dressed. One thinks he was a comrade of Chairman Mao, another that he was a plump Mongolian general who ate too much, yet another that he is a respected historical figure in Hunan Province. We enter General Tso’s Hotel and see a bottle of General Tso’s Liquor – ‘the liquor of heroes’. We visit General Tso’s Elementary School and General Tso’s Museum. Upon entering General Tso’s Home, we see a portrait on the wall that seems to confirm his status as a leading character in some famous Hong Kong historical epic. As befits the status of a legend, a researcher declares, ‘General Tso was always victorious.’ Whatever the facts of his military career, we learn that he did not invent such a dish, nor would the people of Hunan dine on this particular combination of sweet and savory. A list of the General’s favorite dishes is produced, and there is a goose but no chicken. So back we go to America, and San Francisco’s Chinatown, whose Historical Society confirms it has no file on any General Tso.
“The most disturbing sequence of the documentary is on a shameful episode in American history centering on the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, during an era of racist anti-immigration sentiment (‘The Chinese Must Go!!’) that echoes current despicable Republican presidential candidates’ posturing about deporting eleven million people and constructing an enormous fence to prevent future immigrants from crossing the border. If you believe that humans historically repeat their ignoble errors and even worsen many kinds of shabby behavior, you will find yourself nodding at many of the interviews and stories in this documentary. Leong’s Tea House, the forerunner of Leong’s Asian Diner in Springfield, Missouri, was bombed before it even opened in 1963. The fact that there are now two hundred Chinese restaurants in the Springfield area does not mitigate the fact of its being one of the most racist cities in one of the most racist of the United States, which I state with the embarrassment of growing up in a town near Ferguson, and having Springfield relatives whose stories of local racist behavior are sometimes nonsensical enough to achieve genuine absurdity. The Chinese Exclusion Act was not formally rescinded until 1943.
“We bear bemused witness to the extent of our restaurants’ cultural assimilation in cities like New Orleans, with local favorite Szechuan Alligator, and Syracuse, with a Jewish customer’s joke about the ‘Safe Treyf’ of local egg rolls, and with a sign on a Chinese restaurant called ‘Genghis Cohen’. And what after all would countless Jews do for Christmas dinner without Chinese restaurants, and General Tso’s Chicken? Following President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972, Chinese food was everywhere. In New York, Shun Lee West on West 65th Street, and Hunam on 2nd Avenue in particular, inaugurated the era of ‘Palette Macho’ with challenges for who could withstand the spiciest cuisine, such as Hunam’s famous Shredded Lamb Tripe. Through it all, General Tso’s Chicken reigned serenely and consistently on the menus of Chinese restaurants in New York. In the final analysis, the ubiquity of General Tso’s Chicken and the ambiguity of its history are more about the saga of cultural assimilation than the history of foreign cuisine.
“Prior to posting this piece, I attended a birthday party at which we ordered Chinese takeout, each of us choosing a dish from the menu. I chose of course General Tso’s Chicken. 5 cats
“Seen Saturday, August 22, 2015, on Netflix, New York.”