beautiful story, good, not excellent acting, but the cast made you believe in the story. The rap lyrics were denigrating but somehow flowed with the storyline. The profanity was a bit much for me but I had to keep in mind the neighborhood, the characters' ages, etc. Boogie's parents were interesting. Their love for their son divided and kept them together at the same time. It was refreshing to see an ethnic love story between two different minorities.

I liked the complexity of the immigrant experience with a Chinese American steeped in Chinese culture experience along with a Chinese American not steeped in Chinese culture experience. I also appreciated the battle between money and education. The actress that played the mom killed the role. However, it seemed a bit rushed. The end felt a bit hokey until it crossed to the mother and father looking at each other. It needed an earlier scene with the parents face to face in a more similar way to connect them.

Captions would have been helpful. Often the dialogues was fast which made it difficult for me to follow. \r\r\r

Excellent feature debut by Eddie Huang, whose cameo as Uncle Jackie was also fun to watch.