Cliff Lee

The combination of less-experienced actors with a deadpan script is hit-and-miss. The naturalistic performances give the feeling of real high-school students, but at times that vibe veers more toward high-school drama production.

The film lays emotions on thick, with strong performances and dreamy cinematography. The high points are devastating and show off Chon’s empathetic storytelling. But at its ebb, the film tries to do too much at once, spilling every which way.

The excellent cast (Moon Lee, Annie Chen, JC Lin, Pipi Yao, Ding Ning) inhabits rich inner lives, although the love hexagon they find themselves in could be comically described as the “man looking at other woman” meme writ large.

Shang-Chi is a first, but it’s firstly fun to watch.

In recounting the protests and sit-ins against the institutionalized racism of a past era, it offers a visual field guide to what activism looks like in a community that, for some, is not traditionally associated with speaking truth to power.

Boogie is, finally, Huang’s cinematic realization of his dream, a debut filmmaker’s warts and all.