DIDI

*CUT TO THE CHASE*

NOTE: This spoiler was submitted by Jeremy

The film starts in the summer of 2008. 13-year-old Chris Wang/”Wang Wang” (Izaac Wang) spends his days with his friends Fahad Mahmood (Raul Dial) and Jimmy “Soup” Kim (Aaron Chang). He lives with his mother Chungsing (Joan Chen), older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen), and their Nai Nai (Chang Li Hua), while Chris and Vivian’s father stays in Taiwan for work. Chris and Vivian are frequently at each other’s throats, but she is soon headed for college. Chungsing is also an artist who has not had luck being accepted into other art programs.

As the summer starts, Chris joins Fahad and Soup to a party at their friend Hardeep’s (Tarmvir Kamboj) house. Chris is excited and nervous because his crush Madi (Mahaela Park) is also going to be there. At night, the kids at the party are watching “Superbad” when Chris excuses himself to go to the bathroom. He goes upstairs and finds a room where Madi and her friend are hanging out. Chris is a bit awkward around Madi, but she seems to take a liking to him and suggests he add her on Facebook. Chris agrees but waits until the girls aren’t looking so he can leave (it’s implied he got an erection).

Chris joins Facebook and tries talking to Madi. He pretends to like the film “A Walk to Remember” as a way to break the ice with her, even though he’s never seen it and didn’t even realize it’s a chick flick.

Chris goes by the skate park and meets three boys – Donovan (Chiron Denk), Cory (Sunil Maurillo), and Nugget (Montay Boseman). He admires their moves and offers to film their skate moves, pretending like he has experience filming his friends. Donovan agrees to let Chris join them to film, so the boy runs home and deletes any embarrassing videos he made with Fahad and Soup so they don’t think he’s a dork.

Madi gives Chris her number so they can text. She shows interest in him, so Fahad grabs his phone and sends silly but flirtatious texts that score Chris a chance to hang out with Madi. They hang out by the playground and talk for a bit. Madi initiates “The Nervous Game” for them to play, with her moving her hand closer to him and asking if he is nervous. When it looks like she might kiss him, Chris admits that he is nervous, and Madi stops. Later when she tries to talk to him again, Chris is too ashamed to admit that he was embarrassed to talk to her, and he blocks her on AIM. When he comes home, Vivian makes a comment toward him, and he coldly tells her he hates her and can’t wait for her to leave.

Chris hangs out with the skaters during their free time, attempting to film them but getting bad angles or fuzzy footage. At one point, they are told to leave by a security guard. Chris tries to film as Donovan messes with the guard and spitefully does a grind off a rail.

Chris goes out with Fahad, plus two other girls, Ellie (Alaysia Simmons) and Jade (Alysha Syed). While Fahad is naturally outgoing, Chris is very quiet. When Ellie asks if he has any funny stories, Chris brings up a time when he was with Fahad, Soup, and Hardeep, and they came across a dead squirrel, which is already making Fahad uncomfortable. While playing around with the squirrel, Hardeep swung it by its tail, and the tail ripped off. The boys ended up putting the dead squirrel in an old lady’s mailbox and blew it up. The girls are put off by the story, and Chris makes it worse by jokingly calling one of them a “dumb bitch”. Jade’s mom picks them up and they say they are going to a party but they pretend there isn’t enough room in the car so Chris won’t join them. He later sees their pics on Facebook and is noticeably not mentioned.

Before going out with his friends, Chris and Vivian overhear Chungsing and Nai Nai arguing, with Nai Nai saying that the house is falling apart without her son there, but Chungsing insists that the house is being kept together thanks to her.

Chris joins Donovan, Cory, and Nugget at a party with older kids. He drinks alcohol, eats something laced with drugs, and gets high with the boys. He even swallows the end of a joint (a roach) to cough out smoke, which makes the other boys take a liking to him. However, Chris gets too high and starts to experience a vivid hallucination. He starts throwing up at home, with Vivian helping him and covering for him when their mom asks what’s happening.

Chris later finds Nai Nai outside after she has fallen. She says she was out there for three hours. Nai Nai starts to lament how her time is coming to an end and how she will not be there for things such as Chris graduating high school, but Vivian and Chungsing tell her not to think like that.

The skaters come over to Chris’s house to check out the footage he shot for them. They end up unimpressed with how janky the footage looks, especially how Chris completely failed to get the shot of Donovan after arguing with the security guard. Chungsing comes in and greets Chris’s friends, and they even compliment her artwork. Chris ends up shoving his mother out of the room and telling her to stop bothering them. The other boys are put off by Chris’s attitude towards his mom and they decide that he sucks, so they leave.

Vivian later leaves for college, bidding her little brother farewell. Chris now finds himself alone. He tries to talk to Fahad again, but he checks his MySpace top eight friends and doesn’t see himself on Fahad’s page. While out by himself, Chris is approached by another classmate, Josh (Joziah Lagonoy). He makes fun of Chris for not kissing Madi before leaving. Chris responds by hitting him in the back with his skateboard and then punching Josh in the face. After dealing with Josh’s parents, Chungsing picks Chris up, but he explodes on her and aggressively curses at his mother, saying he is embarrassed to be her son and expressing anger over how she compares him to his more successful cousin. Chris ends up running from the car and goes to the playground to cool off.

Chris goes home and goes on AIM to talk to the bot SmarterChild, where he says that he fucks everything up and how everyone hates him. He goes into Chungsing’s room and asks her if she is ashamed of him since she did not go looking for him. Chungsing brings up how when Vivian was 14, she also ran away from home after declaring to her mom that she hated her, and that she was gone for three days. While she worries for her kids, she still loves them, even though she acknowledges it is hard for her sometimes.

The school year begins as Chris and everyone else starts high school. He sees Madi and goes to try and talk to her. Chris apologizes for not writing back to her, but when he asks if they can hang out again, she brings up how he punched Josh in the face, and he understands that she is not interested anymore. When Chris goes to sign up for a visual arts club, he sees both Fahad and Soup, who greet him warmly, indicating that they might still be friends.

The film ends after Chungsing picks up Chris from school, and they quietly have dinner together while Nai Nai sleeps in her room.

In the summer of 2008, 13-year-old Chris Wang tries to get by just before he starts high school. He hangs out with his best friends Fahad and Soup, and he tries to get closer to his crush, Madi. Chris also tries to hang out with a trio of skateboarding teens by filming their skating antics.

Chris's behavior causes a strain on his friendships. After an awkward date with Madi, he stops talking to her out of embarrassment, and he drives a wedge between himself and Fahad after they hang out with two girls, and Chris tells an uncomfortable story. The skateboarders also drop him when they see that not only is his skate footage unusable, but they are also put off by Chris's attitude toward his mother Chungsing.

Things culminate when Chris punches another kid, Josh, after he made fun of him for striking out with Madi. Chris yells at his mother and runs away from her, but he returns home and is apologetic for his behavior. She recounts how his older sister Vivian also ran away around the same age, and while she admits things can be difficult, Chungsing says she loves both her kids.

Chris starts high school, where Madi appears to no longer like him because of what he did to Josh, but Fahad and Soup still seem to want to be friends with him.