upper waypoint
The Do List

‘Extremely Unique Dynamic’ Is a Creative, Truly Original Buddy Comedy

Ivan Leung and Harrison Xu have made a movie within a movie within a movie — and the results are as smart as they are funny.
Rae Alexandra
Four young Asian men gesture wildly as a camera phone on a tripod films them in a garden.
(L) Harrison Xu, (C) Ivan Leung, (R) Hudson Yang and Nathan Doan in ‘Extremely Unique Dynamic.’ (Strand Releasing)

Extremely Unique Dynamic is full of entertaining contradictions. The concept of this buddy flick is unabashedly silly, but also incredibly smart. The movie is unlike other movies, but also won’t stop referencing other movies. On top of that, Extremely Unique Dynamic is a very good film that’s supposed to be about making a terrible one.

Allow me to (attempt to) explain.

Danny (Ivan Leung) and Ryan (Harrison Xu) are BFFs who’ve spent 12 years in Los Angeles trying to make it as actors. They spend their downtime trying to get viral hits online, making roadtrip vlogs, animal videos and songs like “Taco Loving Asian Guy.” (It’s a bonafide earworm.)

During Ryan’s final weekend before moving to Canada to marry his girlfriend, he and Danny decide to make a movie.

“You know in 50 First Dates?” Ryan says to Danny, explaining his movie idea. “Where he pulls up the video every morning and remembers the great times he had with his wife? It’s like that, but our friendship.”

“Every pair of friends,” Danny says skeptically, “they get high and they think that their dynamic is unique enough to make a movie — but that doesn’t mean that they should.”

What follows is an hour of footage that’s sometimes Danny and Ryan, sometimes Danny and Ryan as children in home videos, and sometimes Danny and Ryan as characters from the (several) movie(s)-within-the-movie, who also aren’t all that different from Danny and Ryan.

If that sounds messy, it’s because it definitely is — in a good way.

What makes Extremely Unique Dynamic such a fun watch is that Leung and Xu have an unbeatable natural chemistry and an extraordinary talent for deadpan humor. Beneath all its humorous chaos, it’s a surprisingly meaningful tale about trust and friendship.

In Extremely Unique Dynamic, Leung, Xu and co-director Katherine Dudas have made something truly original: a thoroughly meta movie that isn’t in any way pretentious. It’s fast-paced, frenetic and funny, like the best hour you’ve ever spent on TikTok. It helps that Hudson Yang — who played Eddie in Fresh Off the Boat — keeps showing up, playing an awkward version of his real-life self. (The words “CELEBRITY CAMEO” flash onscreen each time he appears.)

Extremely Unique Dynamic is the kind of movie that film classes could deconstruct, cross-reference and analyze to death. But it’s best left to stand on its own as a story of friends coming to grips with adulthood and new responsibilities. It’s also so well-written that it mostly feels unscripted. That, from the beginning, makes it impossible not to feel in on the joke, and in on the friendship.

By the end, when Danny turns to Ryan and announces “Your real name is Harrison,” you’ll feel like you’re friends with Leung and Xu too.

‘Extremely Unique Dynamic’ screens at the 4 Star Theater in San Francisco on Wednesday, Jan. 29 at 7:30 p.m. Details here. It begins streaming on demand the same day.

lower waypoint
next waypoint
Player sponsored by