It’s July of 2008, and in just one month 13-year-old Taiwanese American Chris Wang (Izaac Wang, Good Boys, Raya and the Last Dragon) will be starting high school. His father, who works abroad, is hardly ever home. Chris (or “Wang Wang” as his friends refer to him, or “Dìdi” as his mother calls him) lives in Fremont, CA with his older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen, Quiz Lady)—who is preparing to head off to college in a month—his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen, Judge Dredd), and grandmother Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua, Nai Nai & Wài Pó), who can only speak Mandarin.

Chris is constantly bickering and fighting with his sister, often stealing her clothes in an attempt to look cool. He enjoys skateboarding and making YouTube videos with his friends Fahad (Raul Dial), Soup (Aaron Chang) & Hardeep (Tarnvir Kamboj). Lately he’s been stalking the MySpace page of Madi (Mahaela Park), a girl he finds attractive. He also gets involved with some skateboarders—Donovan (Chiron Cillia Denk), Cory (Sunil Maurillo) and Nugget (Montay Boseman)—who are looking for someone to film their moves. However, Chris has no game. He is at an age where everything is changing, and without a father figure around, he often resorts to his friends or Google for answers to life’s questions—both of whom don’t really give the best and most reliable advice. Chris is constantly finding himself in awkward situations and alienating friends—caused by him misreading his audience and doing or saying the completely wrong thing in an attempt to make himself look or sound cool. Things are constantly causing him to fall flat on his face, sending him into a cycle of sadness and lost fiends. And even those who do care for him, he seems to push away. However, he soon learns that family will always be there for you, no matter what.

When I first saw this film in the theater I got increasingly annoyed with Chris and what felt like his self-destructive behavior. However, I appreciated this film more watching for second time around on digital. I realized that Chris is just a young kid trying to fit in, experiment, and find his place in the world. While on this journey, he makes some poor decisions in an attempt to look cool and win over friends, but his actions usually have the opposite affect. He also lashes out at the people who actually love and care for him, like his sister and mother, treating them horribly. But this is more of a way for him to try to control and process his sadness and loneliness. When watching the movie again with this perspective, I found the character’s arc to be far more satisfying.

The film also has this interesting parallel storyline involving Chris’ mother, Chungsing. She gave up her dreams of becoming an artist in order to raise a family, and even though it’s been a lot of hard work raising two kids pretty much on her own, she wouldn’t change a thing. But now she is trying to get back into the art game, and she’s constantly getting rejected professionally, Chris has nothing nice to say about her paintings and sometimes even yells at her, and she is constantly getting an earful from Nai Nai about how she’s not raising her son’s children correctly. At the same time, Chungsing is also dealing with the fact that her daughter will be moving away and heading to college.

While the film felt more like a drama to me, it does have its lighter and more humorous moments. One of these scenes is a hilarious rant from an overly-dramatic Nai Nai, who explains in ridiculous detail how one event will now lead to Chris’ life being ruined (the rest of the family can be seen giggling as she goes on and on). There’s also some humorous stuff with Chris where he uses facts from Madi’s MySpace page to manipulate and win her over, but quickly realizes that maybe he’s a bit in over his head and should have done some research first. There’s also a scene where he tries to hang out with a chatbot when he no longer has any other friends, which is both funny and sad.

Speaking of the computer, the film does a great job of recreating the era, with Chris constantly bouncing between YouTube, Google, MySpace, Facebook and AIM. Though his computer seems to run and switch between apps much faster than I remember them working back then.

I watched Dìdi via the Apple TV and found the presentation to be quite good. Since this is a period piece set in 2008, there is a lot of YouTube footage that intentionally doesn’t take advantage of the 4K picture, as the quality is supposed to look like it did 15 years ago. However, the rest of the film features solid picture and sound. The dialogue is clear throughout, with the Mandarin portions captioned clearly. Plus a nice period soundtrack that helps to evoke the era.

Most of these early PVOD releases don’t include any bonus material. A “The Making of Dìdi (弟弟)” featurette was listed on the press release, but this has not yet been added—I suspect it will show up at the time of the general digital release or physical release date. For those wanting a physical media option, Dìdi will be available on Blu-ray October 29, but it is now available to rent or own on Premium Digital.

What’s Included:

Specs and availability of bonus features varies by provider.

Film: (1:33:14)

• 2160p / Widescreen 1.85:1
• Dolby Vision / HDR10
• Audio: English Dolby Atmos, English Descriptive Audio, Spanish (Latin America) 5.1
• Subtitles: English CC, English SDH, French (Canada), Spanish (Latin America)

Extras:

There is currently no bonus material offered with the PVOD release. A Making Of featurette may get added later on.

Final Thoughts:

Dìdi is a unique coming-of-age period piece about a 13-year-old Taiwanese American who is constantly doing and saying the wrong things as he struggles to find his way and purpose as he heads into high school. It featurs some strong performances and a satisfying story arc that seems to both wrap things up nicely, but in a realistic way that doesn’t magically fix all of Chris’ bad decisions. The film is currently available as a premium digital release, with a Blu-ray set for the end of October. The digital release features solid picture and sound, but currently lacks any bonus material. Though this will likely be added later on. The film is work a look for a new coming of age drama with some humor.