It's
great to see that the Search For General Tso movie has garnered a
surprisingly wide audience with its release on Netflix and re-release on
video on demand. This is far more than I envisioned when being
interviewed for the movie over two years ago. Obviously food
documentaries aren't going to make it on anybody's list of most watched
films. But already five people I know, who didn't
know I was in the movie, have seen the movie, and my daughter has
received screen shots of me from her friends while they were watching
the movie. That so many people within a small circle have seen the
movie indicates that the raw viewership
numbers are pretty good.
More
than anything, however, I'm grateful to have even made it into the
final cut of the movie and to see and participate in the process of how
movies try to garner attention and stand out from the clutter on the way
to commercial distribution. Note that the movie is ostensibly about
the search for the origins of General Tso's Chicken, but my part in the
film doesn't add anything to that search. Indeed, as a Californian I
was largely unfamiliar with the General Tso's Chicken dish which is
ubiquitous throughout the United States, but rarely seen in California,
except to be aware of the scarcity of the dish. (This is probably
thanks to the popularity of Panda Express' blockbuster orange chicken
dish, and there's probably room for only one orange colored sweet
Chinese chicken dish in any particular geographic market.)
Yes, there
are other undercurrents in the movie, and perhaps that is why I fit in.
Or perhaps there were more relevant comments from me in the hour and a
half of interview time that didn't make it into the movie, but the parts
where I was included were deemed better, for which i should thank the
masterful film editing. But still, I don't know why I made it into the
movie, while the founders of Panda Express, who were interviewed the
same day I was, did not. Perhaps filmmaker Ian Cheney spotted the human
interest angle, as despite just three minutes of face time, I was
actually mentioned in some of the film reviews, including Variety, Eater
and OC Weekly. (The Variety piece mentioned me after referring to the
"genial assortment of historians, chefs, critics and unclassifiable
eccentrics" in the movie, and I'm not sure if I was meant to be in the
latter category.) One blogger used the adjective "pan faced" to
describe me, for which I have to keep remembering the part of the Junior
Woodchuck Manual that says any publicity is good publicity. But I
certainly have nothing to complain about, as it's been a fun ride. And of course I
now try to eat and mention General Tso's Chicken whenever I can.
