This theorem is very similar to DCT; infact it implies the DCT.
To use the dominated convergence theorem, we need to find a $g$ such that \begin{align} |f_n(x)| \leq g(x) \text{ a.e. }\end{align} for every $n \in \mathbb{N}$. It DOES NOT suffice to have \begin{align} |f(x)| \leq g(x) \end{align} Indeed take $f_n(x) = n \chi_{[0,1/n]}$ then $f_n(x) \rightarrow 0$, but $\int f_n(x) = 1$ (with respect to the lebesgue measure). But we have \begin{align} |f(x)| \leq \chi_{[0,1]}(x) \text{ a.e } \end{align} So we see your stated condition is not enough for DCT.
Now to prove the generalized dominated convergence theorem, we need to use Fatou's lemma. Indeed, define $h_n(x) = g_n(x) - |f_n(x)| \geq 0$.Then we see we can apply fatou's lemma, so we have \begin{align} \int h \text{ d}\mu \leq \liminf \int h_n \text{ d}\mu = \liminf \int g_n - |f_n| = \liminf \int g_n - \limsup \int |f_n| \text{ d}\mu\end{align} Then as $g_n \rightarrow g$ in $L^1$, we see that $\liminf \int g_n = \int g$. Then as $h = g - |f|$, we see that \begin{align} \int g - |f| \leq \int g - \limsup\int |f_n| \Rightarrow \int|f| \geq \limsup \int|f_n| \end{align}
But by Fatou's lemma as $|f| \geq 0$, we have \begin{align} \liminf \int |f_n| \geq \int|f| \geq \limsup \int|f_n| \end{align} Hence, we see that $\int |f| = \lim_{n \rightarrow \infty} \int |f_n|$ as desired.