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Good Boy is used with permission from William Yu. Learn more at https://itswillyu.com.
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Joon Kim is a rising streetwear designer, who loves sneakers and clothes and wants his own line one day. But his dreams go against the expectation of his family. At Joon’s doljabi — a Korean tradition at a child’s first birthday, when the baby picks out one object from an assortment that indicates the baby’s possible future — he picked a stethoscope. And ever since then, his parents expect him to become a doctor.
Joon gets a big break in fashion when he gets a chance to show his designs to a buyer who could showcase his work to a larger audience. But when his laptop gets stolen, he embarks on a desperate search that will force him to come out in the open about his passion and challenge his relationships with his ambivalent girlfriend, his best friend, and his family.
Directed and written by William Yu, this short dramedy is an engaging, layered and dynamic portrait of a young man stepping into his identity as he tries to balance his culture and family with his passion and creativity. It offers a lived-in, authentic insight into generational differences and struggles that will be familiar to many children of immigrant parents in America. But it’s also a relatable, exciting narrative of someone standing in their autonomy and sovereignty as a person, choosing to be fully themselves, despite all the feedback telling them otherwise.
The film has a composed, grounded look that’s muted but natural, and the camera often creates a sense of intimacy and closeness. But the narrative moves quickly, hopscotching between past and present, home and work, parents and girlfriend, showing Joon in all his contexts. The pacing has the same drive and energy as the story’s protagonist, who itches with restlessness to chase his dream and make a mark. We see Joon navigates each relationship with a different facet of himself. It’s a familiar, relatable balancing act, but we also see he isn’t fully himself in each role — he’s shaping himself to fit into expectations in some relationships, avoiding disappointing in others, not admitting his needs and wants — and he never completely owns and occupies who he is, especially with his family.
Getting the chance to show his designs to a buyer, though, finally gives Joon the first major step in pursuing his dream of becoming a streetwear designer. But it also means disappointing his parents, who expect him to go to medical school. As Joon, actor Young Mazino offers a deft, agile performance that traverses Joon’s thoughtful, introspective side with his streetwise, edgier persona. He gets at the tug between various facets of identity and soon learns to find the strength to disrupt the status quo or else lose the opportunity of a lifetime.
Energetic and often a lot of fun, “Good Boy” is also nuanced about how the expectations of family and culture can be hard to balance with the natural desires of adulthood when we are exploring and building our independent lives. Its title refers to Joon’s loyalty to his family and parents, but fulfilling that role also stifles him. In the end, he comes full circle. He says the words he wished he could have heard when younger and needs to hear now. He is not abandoning his heritage, but embracing who he is, in an act that becomes his coming-of-age ceremony.
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A young man wants to design streetwear. His Korean parents expect him to be a doctor. | Good Boy
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