I would totally get a white girl Chinese letter tattoo of General Tso’s Chicken, which may be part of the reason I chose to watch this film for my final journal. The film revolved around the popular Chinese-American dish named after a Chinese general. There were a lot of different layers in this films first act the main one was identifying who General Tso was. The filmmakers did this early by traveling to a city in china where the general was said to be from and show locals photos of the chicken dish. Correspondingly, much like Blackfish this film was much different from the others that I watched in that the assumed narrative was changed mid way through.
The actual narrative of the film instead, turned out to be more about when the dish was devised and where it came from specifically. This film while most of it is shot in present time, dealt more in historical content of the narrative. Interviewing scholars, and restaurant owners who have served the dish for years helped move the narrative forward. A few other interesting characters were also interviewed. Those people dealt more as collecting restaurant menus and eating at Chinese restaurants around the world I sort of felt like the filmmakers used these
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The dish is ultimately presented as a creation for American customers because the Chinese thought that the American palate was that of sweet and savory foods. The historical context and b-roll was very important during this act of the film because the shots made sense this part of the narrative was edited elliptically for the most part, when they are talking about the dish’s genesis in New York City they show images of the inventor of the chicken and close shots of the chicken being cooked. They show the dish being cooked a lot with audio of interview subject’s audio layered under it; this wasn’t always