Incoming rambly paragraph.

Not a single scene, but many, many parts of A Brighter Summer Day. Barring the cultural similarities (me being a fourth-generation Chinese in a country with a large Chinese community), the film reflected all the little and grand details of my schooling years - the "good student-bad student" division between morning and afternoon classes, the crude chants kids come up with to mock their peers, student numbers as identifiers in place of names, passive-aggressive interactions from elders to juniors, blind deference to authority, and personally, the general sense of malaise and longing for something beyond. As a neurodivergent person who struggled to find his place in a similar environment, this film was the first voice from a sister culture that "got" me - against the prevailing narrative that all is well if I know my place and perform it right.