ABACUS.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine
• Position: DOCUMENTARY - Movie review - Brief article

You might have heard that no bank faced criminal charges after the financial crisis of 2008. But that's not quite true. Abacus Federal Savings Bank, a New York Chinatown-based institution founded in 1984 by Thomas Sung, was charged in 2012 with fraud and accused of falsifying mortgage applications by the Manhattan District Attorney's office. The bank and the family that runs it are the focus of a new documentary from Hoop Dreams director Steve James, Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.

The Sung family bankers fit classic archetypes--the steely immigrant patriarch, the small, fierce matriarch, the loyal Americanized daughters who nag their father to...