REEL | After the Boy of Summer Has Gone – 'Dìdi' Kickflips Out

"You're pretty cute for an Asian boy."

Focus Features / Antigravity Academy

Set in the recent past of the summer of 2008 in the Bay Area, Oscar-nominated Taiwanese-American first-time feature filmmaker Sean Wang takes his own experiences growing up to tell a tender coming-of-age story in Dìdi (弟弟, aka "little brother" in Mandarin). His small-scale, semi-autobiographical indie drama is rich with details of its time period featuring juvenile humour about friendship, crushes, and fitting as the son of an immigrant mother.

Starring Izaac Wang as thirteen-year-old Chris (aka "Wang Wang") and Joan Chen as his mother, the ninety-minute film is essentially made up of standalone sequences, little moments, and montages stitched together to get the interior sense of a frustrated but sweet young Chinese boy struggling to grow up.

Wang's eye for casting makes his ensemble of mostly unknown young actors (aside from Chen) all the more identifiable as the family and friends of the title character. From Shirley Chen as Chris' sister to Chang Li Hua (Wang's actual grandma) as Nǎi Nai, their naturalistic performances ring of authenticity from lived-in experiences.

Dìdi proves a winning film of generational late-aughts Asian-American storytelling told in the contemporary vein of something like Eighth Grade. Wang's first film builds such realized world both in its Fremont, California setting to the period-accurate, adolescent online chat and video culture it portrays. Its cringey depiction of early teenage anxieties could not be more spot on.


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