My wife and I saw this yesterday at the Traverse City Film Festival (TCFF). We live in rural Michigan on the other side of the state from Bad Axe but our little town could be theirs (except we don't have a Walmart, thank God.) But the sentiment of many in Bad Axe is pretty much the same as our town.

As a member of the Cambodian-Mexican family that director & cinematographer David Siev is documenting, he lovingly shot this intimate story of the travails of his family during the COVID years in an area that suspected Asian families, especially those that were public about their sympathies. Family members were shown including their flaws and moments of anger and despair. I think this was a very honest film.

And how wonderful it was to see the entire family at the TCFF showing. It is impressive that their restaurant /bar (which so struggled during the quarantine) is doing better than ever and is embraced by most in their community. David has returned the love. (And you gotta love how feisty David's sister, Jaclyn, is throughout the difficult times for all of them.)

I saw Bad Axe in Bad Axe. The movie is honest and accurate. The events portrayed happened exactly as shown.

The film is about an Asian-American family that owns and operates a restaurant in Bad Axe. Through the film they fight to keep their business alive in the face of the pandemic and the upheaval of the 2020 elections. It is a beautiful movie about a difficult period in history.

Go see it!

The film is a very honest and raw portrayal of a multi-ethnic family trying to keep their rural Michigan restaurant alive during the 2020 pandemic. It is at times humorous, sad, tense, and tear-jerking as we follow the Siev family through the Covid crisis, BLM protests, and the 2020 election. Chun Siev, the father of the clan, butts heads with his oldest child, Jacklyn, who is just as stubborn and hard-headed as her father.

Though at times the film feels that it may turn preachy and political, the filmmakers do a great job keeping the tone of the film fairly level, and the events seen on screen speak for themselves. My only slight complaint is the film began to spin its wheels in the third act, but the eventual conclusion leaves you heart-warmed and feeling patriotic.

I hope this film gets wide enough release to get noticed - if it's not one of the Oscar-nominated documentaries at the end of the year, I'll be disappointed.

Full disclosure: I grew up about 20 minutes from the town of Bad Axe, so I was very familiar with the area depicted in the film. I can say it was a very fair-handed treatment of the county.