For children of immigrants, there comes a point in our lives when we start to truly understand the sacrifices our immigrant parents made. The friends, family, and dreams they might have left behind in their birth country — sometimes by choice but often by force. ‘DÌDI (弟弟),’ written and directed by Sean Wang, seeks to honor those sacrifices from the perspective of an American teenager.

‘DÌDI (弟弟)’ takes us back to the late-aughts. Picture this: AOL Instant Messenger chimes can be heard throughout the house, YouTube is still in its nascent phase with an interface most people wouldn’t even recognize today, MySpace savagely asks you to rank your top friends, and texts are composed on a nine-key keyboard.

“In 2008, during the last month of summer before high school begins, an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese American boy learns what his family can’t teach him: how to skate, how to flirt, and how to love your mom,” the film’s logline reads.

The perfectly assembled cast includes Izaac Wang (as Chris Wang), Shirley Chen (as the older sister, Vivian Wang), Chang Li Hua (as Nai Nai), and the forever revered Joan Chen (as the matriarch, Chungsing Wang).

“‘DÌDI ( 弟弟)’ is everything I want to say now about everything I experienced then,” Sean explains. “It is an ode to the joy and chaos of adolescence, it is a thank you, I’m sorry, and I love you to the immigrant mothers that raise us, and it is an examination of how it feels to learn to love yourself during a time when the world says you are unworthy of it. But more than anything, it is the movie I know my younger self would have loved to see: a coming-of-age movie set in a place I know, starring people who look like those I knew, during a moment when we are the worst versions of ourselves having the best time of our lives.”

And for viewers who may think this film is too niche and not for them, Sean says the film “is not an Asian American story – it is simply about an Asian American.” In fact, the film’s official poster says, “For anyone who’s ever been a teenager.” ‘DÌDI ( 弟弟)’ is a universal story that will have you reaching for your phone to call your mother — or leave you with the gut-wrenching sentiment that you should have called her more.

The film premiered in competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it was met with acclaim from both audiences and critics, winning both the U.S. Dramatic Audience Award and the U.S. Dramatic Special Jury Award for Best Ensemble Cast.

‘DÌDI ( 弟弟)’ is in theaters nationwide starting August 16, 2024.

I had the privilege of speaking with Joan Chen and Izaac Wang about the film. Here are edited and condensed excerpts from our conversation.

You’re such an iconic actress and you have so many awards to your name — what attracted you to this story and to this film?

Joan: When I first read the script, before I met Sean, I was so happily surprised that for his first feature, he wrote such a solid script — very genuine, very moving, well structured — all in all, just a great script. I was drawn to the character of the mother because I felt that I’ve experienced it — I’ve experienced it in the core truth, emotionally. I am an immigrant mother who brought up two American children and I do understand within that intimate relationship how fraught it could get with the great cultural chasm because I’m an immigrant and sometimes unsure of the ground I’m standing on.

So this is a film that allows Sean to say “I love you” to his mother and for me, it is a film that allows me to say to my children, “I love you so much and I’m sorry for the mistakes that I’ve made.”

What do you hope that Asian mothers and parents in general take away from this film?

Joan: First of all, I really hope that they see themselves in this film and that they relate to it — the Asian boys and girls and Asian mothers.

I think we have to come from a point of conviction and faith and not from fear. Now that I reflect upon raising my own children, I see a lot of the decisions were made because of certain fear. It’s like, “Oh, what’s going to happen to them? What’s going to happen to them in society if I don’t do this?” It’s all these fear-driven actions and decisions.

Not everybody is a programmer. Not everybody goes to Harvard. All the hopes and expectations that we have of children is almost law of nature. We carry that burden, that weight of hope, but we shouldn’t be weighing them on our kids.

A lot of Asian filmmakers get feedback that their stories are too niche or specific but this story feels universal. What is your pitch to non-Asian audiences for why they should watch this film?

Joan: I think that we should always come from — and most filmmakers do — that personal place. Even in the most fantastical stories there’s always that grain of what storytellers want to express personally. Sean has written a very personal story and he happens to be Asian. He happens to have grown up in Fremont with a very multi-racial community. All the specifics just make the feelings more genuine and authentic. The more specific and honest, the more universally relatable.

Was there a specific scene that stood out to you the most and why? I felt this story was just as much about the mother as it was the son.

Joan: That’s one of the reasons I loved the script. It was a love letter to Sean’s mom. It’s wrapped in the structure and genre of a coming-of-age story specifically from a 13-year-old’s point-of-view. But it is really a love letter to his mom, deep in its core. For me, I take every scene very seriously because when I play a supporting role, I know with each second, you are trying to enrich the character with a new facet. I know that every second that I’m on screen, I’m giving her a new facet about her background, about her relationship with her husband, what happened, and all these little nuances. So every scene to me was precious and extremely important.

That said, there were two scenes. One is the first scene I shot with Izaac. In the car we had a dramatic fight. The second scene was the scene where we quietly look at each other at the end of the film and finally we are at a place that I know he loves me, he sees me, and he appreciates me and needs me. As if for the first time, he sees his mom. It’s always me looking at him, being concerned about him, and he looks away and he’s not taking me in. These are the two scenes I loved.

Oh, one more scene is when his new friends came into the house. It was startling to me in the beginning but one of the boys actually noticed my painting. That was such a joyful, happy surprise for my character! I remember, that was the line I added — I was like, “Oh, thank you! You noticed?” Just so often feeling unloved and under-appreciated and a total stranger, a teenage boy saw my painting. I loved that.

What was it like to star opposite Izaac?

Joan: From the first time we met, there was chemistry — in the first scene we did. He is a natural actor and he’s conscientious and understands. The weight of the film falls on him and he carried it. A lot of credit goes to the whole casting team who put together a family who really felt like a family. There was natural chemistry. Izaac and I just became so natural — it felt right. There were so many scenes when I was speaking to him and I was actually telling my children. Like the scene where I was telling him I wanted to be an artist. And in the last scene when I was looking at him, that’s how I would look at my children. It was very emotionally true between us and it felt really natural.

What was your goal stepping into this role as the main character?

Izaac: I think my number one goal was to try and keep this character as grounded as possible. Not try to overact and be this weird, exaggerated version of this character. I feel like Chris is such a real person, and I felt that if I wanted to express that, I needed to keep everything super grounded.

In what ways did you relate to the story and were there parts of the film that were true to your own lived experiences?

Izaac: I don’t think that I can place specific parts of the film that are close to my real experiences. But I also got the urge of needing to fit in and be cool. The want to have a group that I can hang out with. I think that’s something that every other teenager goes through. I think that’s the most relatable part of being Chris — the urge at one point in my life to fit in with everyone else.

Was there anything that you learned about yourself during this filming process?

Izaac: Yeah, I feel like I learned how to be a better person throughout this filming process. I feel like I learned how to be a better actor as well. I think that just comes with working with someone like Joan, and working with all these other amazing actors like Shirley. Even Sean was such an amazing director and he taught me so much. I feel that the most important thing I learned about myself is to stay true to myself when I’m playing a character.

With Chris, there’s a lot of hurt, rage, loneliness, and awkwardness. He’s discovering himself as he’s growing up in real time. What was your approach to bringing him to life and how did you get into character?

Izaac: The number one thing to being a character is always trying to be yourself in the character’s shoes. Getting into the character wasn’t too difficult. What I tried to bring to Chris was this sense of insecurity. I was actually homeschooled all throughout middle school so I was just super weird. I was basically like really online for five years of my life. And being online for five years of your life makes you weird — just constantly absorbing your computer the whole day. Eventually, when it came around to my first year of high school, I was just like, “Damn. I haven’t been to school in literally four to five years and I want to fit in with everyone else.” I think that’s what I wanted to bring to Chris — feeling really insecure about all these people, going into the first year of high school, wanting to have this glow up, and wanting to be cool. Hopefully, that’s what Chris seems to portray.

Imagine a world in which Chris is your friend — what would you say to him?

Izaac: Man, get your shit together, bro. In the past two years, I’ve learned a lot about myself through high school. A lot about what I want to do in life because of this movie. If I really did have the opportunity to talk to Chris now, I would just be grilling his ass. And maybe that’s not the best thing to teach someone who is kind of angsty and this unstable explosion of emotions but really all the guy needs to learn is to accept yourself for who you are. In the movie, there’s really no one there to tell him that. His mom doesn’t try to tell him to accept himself for who he is, and neither does his dad because his dad isn’t there. He has to learn that himself.

Although the story isn’t autobiographical, I imagine Sean’s inspiration was drawn from his own life experiences. What advice did he give you as you came into this role?

Izaac: There was a lot of advice that he gave me but the advice was the character breakdown. The whole backstory he gave to me about who Chris is as a person. There was this one direction that he gave that I always made fun of him for but it was really helpful — “Do this scene but act like you were just betrayed by somebody like your best friend or your own mom or dad. How would you feel and how would you put that into this scene?”

Joan is such an icon — what was it like to work with her?

Izaac: It was so intense. She literally has 40 years of acting on my eight. I don’t think my eight even count because I really only started trying to act in the past four or five years. I started taking this job more seriously in the past two years when I started booking more roles. With Joan, she’s just such a passionate and such an incredible and overall award-winning actress. Acting with her is like trying to stay alongside someone is who’s running at 100mph and your top speed is like 5mph. Our chemistry together was really good. Through her acting, I also learned how to act, even though she wasn’t even teaching me to act. Her acting taught me how to act better.

Was there one scene that really stood out to you?

Izaac: The fart scene in the car — for one, it’s funny but two, it’s also important to the film. It’s after Chris gets abandoned by his friends, and he has no one else to pick him up but his own mom. So he has to call his mom and he’s like “Can you come pick me up? I just got abandoned.” Even though his mom is trying to lighten the mood, you can still tell that Chris is sad. That was a really difficult scene to shoot because it was hard to portray that but it was also fun, it was really funny, and it was also really hot in that car.

A lot of teenagers will see themselves in this film and even a lot of adults will be reminded of old wounds or trauma that maybe they never really unpacked. What would you say to those people?

Izaac: If they already watched the film, “Was it relatable? Did you like the film? Was it cool?” But if I were speaking to someone who really needed to watch the film for how touching it was and how it really hits you with how relatable it truly is, I’d just be like, “Give this a 5-star on Letterboxd.”