Image by: AntiGravity Academy
With a 4.5 rating on Rotten Tomatoes and released only 2 months ago, Dìdi is making waves in the film world. Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker, Sean Wang, Dìdi was released in theaters on July 26, and is already winning awards and nominations. With a 4.5 million dollar production cost, the movie has won the U.S Dramatic Audience Award and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast at Sundance. The movie was also nominated for Best Feature Film at Seattle International Film Festival and the Cinefest-Miskolc International Film Festival. The movie focuses on a 13-year old Tawainese American, Chris Wang, who learns how to skate, flirt, and love his mom. The movie focuses on themes such as friendship, first love, not fitting in and change. With a R-rated tag it certainly raises some eyebrows but is nonetheless an interesting movie. Many haven’t had the chance to see this movie yet but the few that have seen it since its release say it’s a spectacular movie. Gillian Kaplan, aspiring filmmaker, former WHS student, and a freshman at the California Institute of Arts who worked on the movie as a production assistant says, “The movie was really good. It was a representation of what I went through and the majority of kids in Fremont went through.” Dìdi captured the feelings of young Asian teenagers growing up in America. This is partly because of the director’s own teenage experiences.
Sean Wang lived in Fremont and attended Irvington High School as a 2nd generation Taiwanese teenager. As a person who has grown up in Fremont for most of his life, Wang was familiar with the diversity of Fremont and wanted that to be a part of his movie. Thus the filmmaker started recruiting students here in the Bay Area to be a part of the cast. Several freshmen here at Washington have experiences of auditioning for being a part of the cast. Ahana Mirani, a freshman at WHS who was rejected after auditions, talks about her experience auditioning. “You had to turn in a video of yourself for the audition. I took so many retakes and every time I kept looking at my own audition I kept cringing but I just gave up and turned in my best video.” She also added that during the audition, “I kept cringing at myself. It was kind of nerve-wracking but I was proud of myself.” While auditioning for Dìdi must have been scary, it certainly will be a good story to tell in the future!
While Dìdi is a great movie, it has a big R-RATED tag plastered over the film. This definitely keeps some people away from the movie and makes parents very reluctant to have their children watch it. Dìdi is Rated-R for language, sexual material and drug/alcohol use involving teenagers. While some people steer clear of Dìdi because of its age rating, Kaplan believes that the rating is not a reason to not watch the movie. “There are sexual innuendos and there’s smoking and curse words. But it’s very similar to the teen experience.” She adds on, saying, “Every teenager and every 13-year old should watch this because it represents them very accurately.” Ultimately, Dìdi was a nostalgic movie that transports the audience back to 2008. With beautiful storytelling, Dìdi portrays the difficulties growing up as an Asian second-generation teen. Kaplan and many other movie reviewers highly recommend watching this movie. (Dìdi is available to watch at the theaters or on popular streaming services such as Apple TV, Amazon Prime or Fandango.)
Nikita Murugesan is a freshman at Washington High School. She was born and raised here, in Fremont.This is her first year at the Hatchet and she is interested in covering topics like important things happening in our school, community and world. Nikita enjoys reading books and mangas.When she is not reading, she enjoys hanging out with her friends, playing badminton, teaching indian martial art’s, skateboarding and rollerblading. For this year she plans to get better at playing the trombone. She is unsure of which major she wants to pursue but she wants to attend a UC college.