It’s June 2008. The final school bell of the year rings distantly in your ears as you burst through your front door, haphazardly kicking your sneakers across the living room floor. Barrelling up the stairs, you sling your backpack onto the ever-growing pile of laundry in the corner before collapsing into your desk chair. Motion City Soundtrack hums through your speakers, their pop-punk basslines underscored by the familiar start-up sounds of your desktop Dell.
This is just a glimpse into the world of Focus Features’ “Dìdi (弟弟)” — Academy Award-nominated writer-director Sean Wang’s triumphant feature debut. A raucous and radiant story based on his own life, “Dìdi” (or, ‘little brother’ in Mandarin) was instantly beloved as an ode to the aches of adolescence. Premiering at Sundance Film Festival this January, it won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and Special Jury Prize for Best Ensemble Cast before capturing hearts nationwide.
So, what makes “Dìdi” so special?
We first meet protagonist Chris Wang (Izaac Wang) — less affectionately, Wang Wang, to his friends — in the summer before his freshman year. The son of Taiwanese immigrants, he lives with his college-bound sister (Shirley Chen), well-intentioned mother (Joan Chen) and aging paternal grandmother (Chang Li Hua) in the sleepy suburb of Fremont, California. When he’s not landing kick flips or updating his MySpace, he can reliably be found skipping SAT prep, pranking his sister or, on the rare occasion, blowing up mailboxes with his friends.
In other words, he’s a near-biblically accurate 13-year-old boy — one with all the prerequisites to painstakingly “come of age.”
“Dìdi” slots snugly…
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