A.K.A. Don Bonus

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Nerica D @nerica13 1d A.K.A. Don Bonus was one of the most heartfelt and emotional documentary that I think I've seen I don't think I've seen something that actually almost made me like tear up. This recorded documentary shows the reality of what many immigrants and refugees have to face and deal with when coming into America. It lets us see what life is like for Don Bonus and his refugee family while trying to find assimilate and make a living in San Francisco. The film felt made me feel like I was experiencing his traumas with him. You can really see and feel how hard life was for Don and his family especially as they struggle to keep their own identities and stay in touch as a family. See more Johnny Y @JohnnyYang 1d a.k.a. Don Bonus was a powerful, real, and emotional documentary about a Cambodian refugee teenager trying to graduate from high school in the 1990s. The film takes place years after the Cambodian genocide under the Khmer Rouge, which forced Don's family to escape their country and start over in the United States. This history matters because it helps explain why his family struggles with poverty, stress, and pressure around school. In the film, Don is given a camcorder and starts filming his own life. This makes the documentary feel very personal because we hear his thoughts directly instead of someone else speaking for him. We see him failing classes, arguing with his mom, and feeling stuck between two cultures. his mom focuses on survival and hard work because of what she lived through, while Don wants freedom and a chance to figure out who he is. The film shows that school struggles are not just about laziness. Don faces bigger problems like poverty and not feeling understood. See more Yasir S @Yasir2004 1d This movie captures the life of Spencer, and it is honestly very sad to see everything he goes through. He struggles in school and is at risk of failing his classes, which creates a lot of pressure on him. As a Cambodian immigrant in America, he faces challenges that go far beyond academics. The film does a powerful job of showing how difficult it can be to adjust to a new country while dealing with personal and social struggles. The documentary also highlights the conditions he lives in. He stays in a small apartment complex in a dangerous neighborhood where violence is common. One moment that really stood out to me was when a group of kids threw a rock through his grandmother’s window and broke it. That scene showed how unsafe and unstable his environment is. Spencer even talks about how there are shootings happening almost all the time around his area and how kids will shoot you for no reason. It really shows the harsh reality of his surroundings. See more Stephanie M @Stephanie358 1d This documentary gives a raw look at Don Bonus, a high school senior living in the Sunnydale housing projects, and shows how poverty, family stress, and the justice system shape his life. The film takes place during the 1990s, when tough-on-crime policies led to more youth being pushed into detention instead of getting support. We see how Don spends long hours commuting to school, stays home alone often, and turns to friends and basketball as an escape. His family’s history as refugees who fled war in Cambodia adds important historical context and explains the fear and instability they live with. The film’s close, observational style makes everything feel personal and real. Instead of judging him, it shows how lack of help and slow responses from systems leave vulnerable teens behind. It’s powerful and difficult, but important to watch. See more Angel V @Angelv268 1d Aka Don Bonus is a powerful and documentary that challenges traditional ideas about authorship, representation, and the ethics of storytelling. Set in 1990s San Francisco, the film follows Sokly Ny, a Cambodian American teenager navigating gang life, poverty, and trauma in the aftermath of his family’s escape from the Khmer Rouge regime. Rather than simply documenting Sokly’s life, Nakasako gives him the camera, allowing Sokly to film his own reality. This approach complicates the viewer’s role and raises important questions about who has the right to tell immigrant and refugee stories. The film is rooted in the Cambodian genocide under Pol Pot and the refugee resettlement wave that brought many Southeast Asian families to the United States in the 1980s. Sokly’s anger, instability, reflect the long-term psychological effects of displacement. The film refuses to romanticize the "American Dream," instead exposing how systemic neglect and poverty shape immigrant youth experiences. See more Henry C @calgerh 2d This film made for a great insight into the life of a Hmong immigrant, through an almost online blog/day-in-the-life of format. And I suppose it's because that's exactly what it was. I liked the pacing of the mood in this film: shots of the kid partying and having fun would then lead to shots of him in his room describing some more negative occurrence that day/week/month. It may seem jarring to viewers, but those kinds of swings up and down is how life goes for some people, sometimes a great day comes crashing down in the end, or vice versa. I think this switch in tone and general realism of everything that was happening (since it really was happening in real life) really helped me empathize with the kid and everything he and his friends and family were going through, and since that is the point of the film, it did its job wonderfully. See more Read all reviews

A.K.A. Don Bonus

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