‘Extremely Unique Dynamic’ is a standout in Asian American filmmaking
Harrison Xu and Ivan Leung discuss directing, and acting, in their award-sweeping indie movie
From left, Harrison Xu and Ivan Leung.
Extremely Unique Dynamic
Words by Andre Lawes Menchavez
There’s an extremely unique indie film collecting awards at film festivals across the country, and it has two Asian directors and actors at its helm.
Extremely Unique Dynamic is a hyper-meta Asian queer stoner coming-of-age bromantic comedy directed by and starring Ivan Leung and Harrison Xu. Leung and Xu play two lifelong best friends coming together to make a movie—about a movie, about a movie—shortly before one of them moves out of town.
The film has won 19 awards so far, with critics praising its comedic flair and heart. The film is now nominated for a Queerty award for Best Comedy, alongside major movie production company films like Challengers and The Substance. The film also has a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Alongside being a genuinely funny movie about two stoner friends, the film accomplishes much more than meets the eye. It adds to the range of Asian American filmmaking, creates new dynamics of queer and Asian American representation in the media, and further emphasizes the excellence found in independent films that often get overlooked during the awards season.
"Extremely Unique Dynamic" has won 19 awards so far.
Extremely Unique Dynamic
JoySauce chatted with Leung and Xu about the process of creating a film with this much ambition on their own, the intentions behind creating these nuanced Asian characters, and discussed how being Asian American and children of the Internet influenced their filmmaking.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Andre Lawes Menchavez: Watching this film reminded me of when I was growing up along with the Internet, making movies with friends on iMovie, posting it on YouTube. Truly my introduction to loving film! Where did you all find your love for film?
Ivan Leung: My first experience making a movie was in Spanish class in the seventh grade. We got to do a Spanish perfume commercial and I caught the bug. And I was a Tumblr boy, made YouTube videos, so I caught the bug of just performing, acting, and filmmaking.
Harrison Xu: I went on Windows Movie Maker for my grade 10 drama class and made lip sync videos, when that was cool, and we did it to “A Thousand Miles.” We all lip synced the song and I edited it together. I just remember when we were kids, we would just edit together the most random things and have fun, and we didn't really care if anyone saw it. That's the exact feeling that we wanted to evoke in the movie, especially in the beginning montage. It’s an homage to our generation and content creation and where it's gone, and also the idea of when you were kids, you didn't really care how people perceive the film or your content and you just did it because you loved it. We wanted to really show that our characters wanted to have fun with film.
ALM: Since we’re all clearly children of the Internet here, did any early YouTube Asian creators influence you growing up? Did any of their work inspire this film?
IL: I think our now friend Wesley Chan from Wong Fu Productions, and Wong Fu Productions in general, inspired us. I'm a San Diego boy myself, so seeing San Diego boys that just decided to make something for their friends in college, and it leading to what Wong Fu is now, it’s all really inspiring. Ryan Higa is also a really big one for me.
HX: Wong Fu was really cool because they were such a big part of my childhood. Wesley Chan was also supposed to moderate one of our Q and A’s at one of our screenings that unfortunately got canceled due to the fires. But he did come and watch the movie when we screened it at USC, and he loved it. It's really cool having him be a supporter of our film because he was such a big inspiration for us growing up.
IL: It's also really crazy because we didn't have representation on TV and film. YouTube was where we got to experience the “Oh, my God, I can see myself in a way that we've never seen ourselves before” moments. Because on TV and film, we're usually perceived as some kind of stereotype or caricature that didn't really add that much to the story, or just as a comic relief. And in the early YouTube days, we could see Asians as fully realized people.
From left, Ivan Leung and Harrison Xu on the set of "Extremely Unique Dynamic."
Extremely Unique Dynamic
ALM: Your film challenges stereotypes through this hyper-meta, queer, stoner story. How did you all decide to create such an ambitious plot like this? I’m assuming you were all under the influence—
IL: I signed an NDA, so I can’t answer that—
HX: Ivan’s very method! [Laughs] But we worked together on Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey and we were friends for over 10 years. We’ve been egging each other on like, “Let's make a movie together.” But eventually when it just felt right, everything kind of just happened. It was then when we took the advice of literally just writing what you know. So, we took what we knew and heightened it, and that’s where the whole meta component came from.
ALM: I loved the execution of your characters and the relationship you had felt so authentic. What was it like having each other as scene partners?
IL: It was really easy acting with Harrison because I know that I can't offend him, and he can't really offend me, and so we have this level of trust. So acting with Harrison was pretty easy, just because I felt so open and free. It also gave us so much freedom in letting us take a lot more bigger swings. It was a self-financed independent movie, so we didn't have to listen to any other person's opinion to get what we wanted in our vision.
ALM: I can totally see that trust in the dialogue between you two, especially in the argument scenes—like that scene where you confront each other in the backyard. Was a lot of the film’s dialogue improvised?
IL: I think we could say about 70 percent of our film was improvised, but we still had a very detailed outline of how the scene will start and how the scene ends.
HX: Like in that argument scene in particular, we actually don't argue in real life or have those types of fights. So it was really fun playing that and being able to have that trust with Ivan and know that we don't actually mean what we say. There were a lot of moments of improvisation, but there were certain things that were word for word that we needed to get in. Like the, “I'm not your f*cking boyfriend,” is one of those lines that we needed to drill in. But yeah, it was a lot of fun just being able to riff with Ivan.
ALM: It’s wild also that you both were improvising with the acting on screen while simultaneously directing it. You both have film experience, but what was this experience like being both behind and in front of the camera?
HX: Directing and acting in a scene is really challenging because you want to be in the mindset of the actor and be fully in it, but you also want that bird's eye view as a director of what's working and what's not working. We had a really strong team around us. Katherine Dudas was our third director. It was really nice having that third person behind the camera when Ivan and I were acting together. Also, Noel Do-Murakami, our producer, was really helpful too. It was really great having an additional person who was not only Asian, but queer as well, to see what was going on and really chime in with his thoughts.
ALM: With something as hyper-meta as this film is, were there ever times in the initial development of the movie where, in these discussions with your team, you felt like you needed to scale it back a little? Did you ever have moments where you felt like you could push it further?
IL: The funny thing is, we actually went two metas deeper initially. We actually had a really crazy animated scene with two blobs in space talking to each other, and then we had an old man sequence as well! [Laughs] But after watching it we realized that was too much meta. We wanted to concentrate on maintaining the stoner, queer, Asian coming-of-age romantic comedy meta, but still hit the nose more on the core relationship and dynamic. In general, there's not a lot of movies that focus on the relationship between a gay best friend and a straight best friend, and also not have it be a romantic story.
ALM: I love that you mention this because I agree that the dynamic between your characters was so refreshing. It so easily could’ve played into the overdone queer and Asian tropes. Even Ivan’s character coming out was super nonchalant and not hyper-dramatized when it so easily could’ve been. How important was it to you both to shift traditional narratives while making this?
IL: What you said really resonates with me. When I’m watching queer or Asian American media, I keep seeing the same story of how hard it is to come out. I remember the first time I saw that movie Love, Simon. I was so happy because it was the first time I watched a movie that showed the parents being so accepting. It was so positive. And I wanted to do something that's in that vein, to show that coming out won’t always end in destruction.
HX: We knew that that relationship was the driving force behind the film, so we really didn’t want to lean into stereotypes.
IL: We wanted to show people who we are as fully realized authentic human beings, and not as two-dimensional caricatures of what people think a queer Asian man should be.
"Extremely Unique Dynamic" follows two lifelong best friends coming together to make a movie—about a movie, about a movie.
Extremely Unique Dynamic
ALM: How do you guys think that this film challenges or expands Hollywood's perception of Asian and queer identity and filmmaking, then?
HX: I felt like being an Asian actor in Hollywood when we first started, and even now to an extent, it's always Asian plus something. It's Asian plus martial artist, Asian plus nerd. We really wanted to create this movie where we could just exist as Asian people and just be people. And we made this film specifically, too, so we could both be in a project together. Because for the longest time, if you cast one Asian person in a movie, you check that diversity quota and they’re like, “Nice, a diverse friend group.” But then if you have two Asian guys in one friend group, it's now an “Asian friend group.” It’s now an “Asian film.” I feel like we've definitely made progress in the last 10 years in the industry, just allowing Asians to exist, but I feel like we still have a ways to go. Hopefully us making this film inspires others to do the same.
ALM: So what would you hope Hollywood learns from watching a film like Extremely Unique Dynamic?
HX: I would love Hollywood to cast me and Ivan in something together! [Laughs] In something that isn't an “Asian project,” like something that’s just a fun comedy series, and we're just, like, two people in it. That'd be cool.
IL: Yeah, I want everyone to see how amazing Harrison is, and I just want to see Harrison shine. [Laughs] But actually, I want it known that independent cinema is alive and it is thriving—
HX: Well, you know how we were talking earlier Andre about early YouTube culture, I feel like YouTube really democratized what it meant to be a content creator back then. And I feel like, fast forward 20 or so years, we're now in this era of independent filmmaking where it really does feel like filmmaking is more accessible to the masses because for the longest time making a film required a film camera, expensive crews, a big production. Now you have iPhones! You can take this and just shoot whatever. There are a ton of fantastic movies out there that are shot on iPhones. So I just feel like we're now entering this age where the studio system is becoming antiquated, and it's really opened up room for a lot of independent filmmakers to just go out and shoot stuff, and I hope that general audiences can appreciate that, and also take a chance on watching an independent film too.
ALM: We’ve got to talk about how you guys have won dozens of film festival awards and scored a huge Queerty nomination! How do you both feel about receiving this much love from the indie, queer, and Asian communities? Were you expecting this reception at all?
IL: We had no idea. I was like, “Holy sh*t, people like our movie!” It’s crazy because we made this movie for ourselves. We wanted to have a time capsule of our friendship and to show people our acting skills because we didn't get the opportunities to show it at all. We made this for ourselves and our friends and family and were hoping to just get into at least a couple film festivals. But we didn't know how big it was gonna grow into. I get to travel with Harrison all over America because of this film, and I never got to do that ever. And I've been reading Queerty since I was a kid! So, it’s crazy that we get to see our movie up with all these other incredible movies. I feel a lot of gratitude, happiness, and a lot of other nice, positive, shiny, fluffy feelings.
HX: The tingly things on the inside feel really nice. [Laughs] I also feel like it's been really interesting going to every festival. It’s because whether we go to a queer festival or Asian festival or a Canadian festival, audiences will laugh at different things, and it's been fun sitting in on all our screenings and getting a better sense of what's resonating with people. We of course wanted to get into a major film festival and have people see it, but we really didn't know where it was going to go and how people would receive the film. And it's really special having people tell us that they've watched it and they liked it. Even if it's just one person, the fact that a movie you're in can impact someone, is really special.
ALM: Do you two have any advice other aspiring Asian filmmakers or actors who want to take on their ideas like you two have?
HX: As Asian people in particular, I feel like we tend to over analyze things and strive for perfection, which can be great. But I also feel like we often get in our own ways. For us two, we never had this grand master plan of making this film. It just kind of sparked. We had this idea that came and then we ran with it, and I feel like from that we learned momentum is also everything, too. Once you have an idea and you want to create something, just go for it. I feel like a lot of people we've talked to have had amazing ideas, but they'll sit on it for a while and it's really hard to get back on that train. So I think once you have that inspiration and once you have something going for you, just keep going.
IL: You're motivating me right now, Harrison! [Laughs] You really are.
HX: Okay, great. Let's make another movie. Andre, are you in?
ALM: Okay, I'll pitch you a sequel idea right now. Let's say Ivan's character falls in love with a non-binary Filipino interviewer on Zoom who's interviewing the character in the movie about the movie that they made in the movie.
IL: Oh, Andre. Wow, have I told you you have such nice eyes? [Laughs] Yes, that’d be great.
HX: I love it!
ALM: No, but really though! Have you two actually thought about doing a sequel?
HX: Honestly, it's crossed my mind a few times. I'm all about the meta, right? So with the meta, you can continue to get more and more meta. So you know, this interview recording could potentially be great footage to start the sequel, too! Like we could actually be in the sequel right now. I don't know, anything's possible!
Published on March 5, 2025