The Chinese language only introduced a feminine pronoun in the 1920s. Now, it might adopt a gender-inclusive one, suggests JANET DAVEY
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Film round-up: August 1, 2024
Adolescent boyhood, castaway, a Japanese masterpiece, and the limitless power of imagination: the Star's critic MARIA DUARTE reviews Didi, Kensuke’s Kingdom, My Neighbour Totoro, and Harold and the Purple Crayon
ALEX HALL is intrigued by a detailed history of Gaza that demonstrates its historic resilience and changing economy
RON JACOBS welcomes the long overdue translation of an epic work that chronicles resistance to fascism during WWII
MAYER WAKEFIELD is chilled by the co-dependency of two lost souls as portrayed by German communist playwright Franz Xaver Kroetz
The Star's critics BRETT GREGORY, JOHN GREEN, MICHAEL BONCZA and ANGUS REID review The Stimming Pool, Misericordia, La Cocina, Irena’s Vow, and The End
CHRIS MOSS welcomes a radical history that brings marginalised stories and overlooked people and agencies to the centre
ANDREW HEDGECOCK relishes visual storytelling with no respect for genres, movements or styles
Didi (15)
Directed by Sean Wang
★★★★
SET in 2008 during the last month of summer this hilarious yet raw and biting coming-of age tale captures the irreverence and vulnerability of adolescent boyhood as it follows the life of a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American youngster.
Loosely inspired by his own teenage years and shot in his hometown of Fremont, writer-director Sean Wang’s impressive debut feature is charming and moving.
It portrays the spikey sibling relationship to a tee as Chris (Izaac Wang), “Didi” to his mother, bickers and fights bitterly with his older sister Vivian (Shirley Chen) who finds him extremely annoying, and is fed up with how he steals her hoodies and T-shirts.
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