Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Chang Can Dunk’ on Disney+, a Thoughtful Dramedy About a Classic Tryhard Teen

Chang Can Dunk (now on Disney+) is a coming-of-age youth-sports dramedy notable for three reasons: One, it once dwelled on the Black List of Hollywood’s best unproduced screenplays. Two, it boasts Lena Waithe as a producer, whose name typically signifies smart, progressive storytelling (and has adorned such projects as Master of None, The Forty-Year-Old Version and Dear White People). And three, it offers some welcome Asian representation, first-time writer-director Jingyi Shao crafting a high-school saga about an Asian-American teen who believes jamming a ball through a hoop is his ticket to forging a new identity – not that any of it comes easy, of course. 

CHANG CAN DUNK: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: We open with a throwback-y “instructional” film explaining what a dunk is in the context of basketball, just in case you weren’t aware? Then we meet Chang (Bloom Li). He’s 16, loves basketball, plays in the marching band and lives with his single mom Chen (Mardy Ma), who’s a nurse, the go-to occupation of every single mom in the movies ever. He’s kind of reinventing himself this school year, and has the air of a kid who means well but sometimes tries too hard to be cool. He and his best friend Bo (Ben Wang) volunteer at the hospital together. The new girl Kristy (Zoe Renee) plays the snare and Chang plays the bass drum and when he first meets her he hears music that isn’t occurring anywhere but in his head. And then there’s Matt (Chase Liefeld), Chang’s former friend, a basketball star; he upstages Chang during gym class and is the go-to guy when the varsity team needs someone to drain a buzzer-beater. Chang doesn’t try out for the team because he’s good but not that good, and would put in a lot of work only to ride the bench.

Oh, also: Matt can dunk. Chang can’t. At 5’8”, Chang’s a little short on one end. Matt has rich parents and an overexuberant ego, and prompts us to debate if there’s a difference between a classic bully and a straight-up a-hole. A series of escalating incidents result in a bet: If Chang can dunk a basketball after having some time to train, Matt has to pony up his framed Kobe Bryant jersey. If he fails, Matt gets Chang’s Pokemon card that’s worth a couple thou. Then we get a countdown: 11 weeks to figure out how to dunk. Seems… iffy. Very iffy.

Chang starts working out willy-nilly and choking down gross smoothies and dry protein powder. Meanwhile, he goes on a date or two with Kristy and they bond over their missing dads (hers died of cancer, his split with his mom and otherwise isn’t in this screenplay). We get deep into Chang’s contentious relationship with his mother, who works long hours and criticizes him for not sticking with things, which deepens his resolve to win the dunk-bet – which, notably, she doesn’t know about. He and Bo find a guy named DeAndre (Dexter Darden) via his funny basketball videos, and he agrees to help Chang train in exchange for Bo ratcheting up his channel’s production values. We get a Jimmy Eat World workout montage and their videos start racking up tens of thousands of views and Chang’s mom still doesn’t know because all she does is nurse, nurse, nurse. Then we’re a day away from Dunk Day and we look at our watches and realize there’s still half the movie to go. Looks like life will go on after Dunk Day, and unlike so many other movies that would make Dunk Day the big climax, we’ll get to see some of that life.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Chang Can Dunk is a new-era 21st-century blend of White Men Can’t Jump and sports-underdog fodder a la The Mighty Ducks and such.

Performance Worth Watching: Li ably carries the bulk of the movie’s drama, convincingly elevating the typical tryhard-teen character into something distinctive.

Memorable Dialogue: A deal is struck:

Bo: You get Chang dunking like Vince Carter, I’ll get your channel looking like Scorsese.

DeAndre: Michael Bay.

Bo: Michael Bay?

DeAndre: Yes. Michael Bay.

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Chang Can Dunk matches the going rate for a new-era 21st-century coming-of-age youth-sports dramedy: It’s smarter, wiser, more observant, keener on subtext and more culturally sensitive than the ’80s and ’90s films that formed the genre template. Which is to say, diverse representation, complex characters and a refusal to commit to stereotypes has become its own formula now, and Shao’s pursuit of a story greater than just the superficialities of its big-bet plot, welcome as it is, isn’t quite so daring in the wake of films like The Edge of Seventeen, Moxie, Crush and many others. 

And while Chang adheres to a handful of cliches from the social-media era of teen angst, its positive qualities generally supersede them. There’s no clear villain for Chang to rail against – his relationship with his mother is thorny but loving, and while the Matt character is often little more than a plot device, his existence in the film stirs a discussion about privilege and racial disparity that never becomes pointed or obvious, and remains in the subtext. That shifts the conflict from external to internal, emphasizing Chang’s awkward psychological development, perhaps informed by his Asian-American background. Such grace notes go a long way for the film, which is a bit predictable and heavy-handed, but also well-meaning, lively, lightly comic and thoughtful in its performances.  

Our Call: STREAM IT. Chang Can Dunk is a front-to-back incisive dramedy, ripe for family viewing.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.