“Once you get there, you think, that’s a little embarrassing or revealing or scary... but ultimately, I learned that is where the good stuff is,” says Taiwanese-American director Sean Wang about writing indie breakout Didi (弟弟), which debuted at Sundance Film Festival Asia 2024 in Taipei last month.
Didi is a heartwarming coming-of-age story centered on the Asian American experience. Not just a 2000s teenage nostalgia piece, but a raw, unflinching look at immigrant families and adolescent identity struggles. It quickly became the centerpiece of the event, striking a chord with not only those sharing similar backgrounds but anyone who’s ever felt out of place.
Told through the eyes of 13-year-old protagonist Wang Wang in 2008, the film conjured the eerily accurate nostalgia of Windows XP, instant messaging “:)” and slogan skater tees, a welcome throwback for all millennials. However, the movie’s stark reminder of the 2000s ubiquitous racial slurs and microaggressions jolts us back to a time when growing up “other” exacerbated the already surging hormones and crippling insecurities of the teenage ordeal.
Photo: Hollie Younger
Growing up in California, Wang Wang is split between the academic pressures of his Taiwanese mother and paternal grandmother, a screaming disconnect with his older sister and the desperate need to fit in with his peers — and American culture at large. Take Wang Wang introducing himself as “Chris” to impress some skater dudes and bluffing to his middle school crush that of course he’s seen E.T. and Star Wars.
WRITERS BLOCK
At Sundance Festival Asia, Wang spoke to the Taipei Times about his introspective writing process and the challenging feelings it brought to to the surface.
Photo: Hollie Younger
“A lot of the movie came from a personal place,” he said.
Wang grew up in the Bay Area with a similar family dynamic and background to the film’s protagonist, which was “deeply rooted [in the] immigrant community.” But he still suffered the movie’s central theme: the teenage affliction of never quite fitting in.
“I grew up around a lot of Asian American kids and that was a unique thing to feel like you don’t fully belong in a place where you feel like you should,” he said.
Photo: Hollie Younger
Utilizing Wang Wang’s friendship groups as the core cast, he compared the movie to Superbad or Stand By Me, in “the irreverence of the friendships and also how poignant they can be.”
But where the movie shines is the emotive and nuanced portrayal of family dynamics between first-generation immigrant children and their parents.
Powerhouse Joan Chen, star of The Last Emperor, played Wang Wang’s mother.
“The entire mother-son storyline was something I was hesitant to explore at first,” Wang said because it demanded difficult conversations with his own mother, who played a role in the writing of the film.
Didi conveys the powerful interplay of native and local languages in a multi-generational immigrant household. The interspersing of English words into Mandarin Chinese by his Taiwanese mother feels natural, because it is. Wang asked himself “how would my mom say it,” eventually inviting his own mom to script readings to find out.
DIRECTORIAL DEBUT
On the third day of the Sundance event, Wang appeared among a vibrant lineup of Hollywood’s newest directorial talent at the “Working with Actors” panel.
Wang told the panel that he specifically cast kids with little to no acting experience and chose his protagonist’s diverse friend group based on chemistry tests. The kids were allowed to run off script, resulting in the desired authenticity and capturing genuine reactions to timeless teenage experiences like kissing in a playground.
Between teenaged newcomers and seasoned pros like Joan Chen, Wang said his directorial brain felt “split in two,” a dichotomy unseen in the movie’s seamless character building.
Wang used his own life as art, saying much of the movie’s messaging is, “everyone has things they’re embarrassed about or ashamed about.” By daring to dive deep into his own psyche and childhood memories, then “chase that, unpack it, translate it into something that works for the movie,” Didi is ultimately defined by this almost-biographic dimension.
In the final anecdote of the panel, Wang recalled asking his lead actor and teenage self, Izaac Wang, how he felt about wrapping up filming. The 16-year-old responded: “Wang Wang is a loser.”
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