Dìdi ( 弟弟) – Sean Wang’s Tender Coming-of-Age Drama Captures Teen Life in 2008 | Trailer

Focus Features debuted the official trailer for Dìdi ( 弟弟), the award-winning coming-of-age drama film starring Izaac Wang as a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy learning how to skate, flirt and love his mother.

Also starring in the movie are Shirley Chen, Chang Li Hua, Raul Dial, Aaron Chang, Mahaela Park, Chiron Cilia Denk, Montay Boseman, Sunil Mukherjee Maurillo, Alaysia Simmons, Alysha Syed, Georgie August and Joan Chen.

Release Date

Written and directed by Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Sean Wang, in his directorial debut, Dìdi ( 弟弟) world premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival where it won the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast; and opens in theaters on Friday, July 26, 2024.

Synopsis

The film is set in 2008 in the Bay Area, and is a funny, irreverent, and affecting ode to first-generation teenagers navigating the joy and chaos of adolescence as seen through the lens of a 13-year-old impressionable Taiwanese American boy, played by Izaac Wang (Good Boys, Disney’s Raya and the Last Dragon).

During the last month of summer before high school begins, he learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom.

Said Sean Wang, “Dìdi (弟弟) is the movie I’ve always wanted to see: a coming-of-age story set in a place I know, starring people who look like those I knew, during a time when we are the worst versions of ourselves having the best time of our lives. It’s been a dream to see the film resonate with so many others since our premiere at Sundance….”

Reviews

Guardian review gave the film described as ‘easily one of the best, most seamless films I’ve seen on the experience of growing up online‘ 4 of 5 stars writing, “Dìdi has a deft handle on the era-nonspecific teenage angst and turmoil as well, enough that one needn’t to be from the class of 2012 to relate to how Chris’s world opens up, via filming videos for a group of older teens, and crumbles around feelings of shame, inadequacy and the devastation that is being left out. The costumes, setting, computer interfaces and music are all scarily accurate to 2008, a testament to Wang’s airtight hold on this particular strange, liminal period – not just between childhood and adolescence, but between early YouTube and smartphones, Myspace and social media dominance. But its tender blend of emotions is evergreen. Dìdi’s final touching, soft note of growth – so much internalized and overcome already, so much to go – would be moving in any year.”

Official Trailer

Watch the official trailer for Didi( 弟弟)