One was suburban footballer Patrick Cronin.

The other was Longxiang Hu, a Yarra Valley Grammar student.

Both were attacked late at night on Melbourne streets, on the same weekend, allegedly by other young men.

When Mr Cronin died, in the Royal Melbourne Hospital intensive care unit on April 18, it was amid a torrent of words and images, about a broken-hearted family and the seeming inevitability that young men will maim each other after barely a sniff of grog.

Five days later, Mr Hu passed quietly in the same unit.

It was not until 12 days after the vicious and subsequently fatal onslaught that it was even made public.

Police wanted both the April 15 bashing and the later death kept quiet, but it was not easy - Mr Hu, also known as Jeremy, was a well-loved student, who friends wanted to mourn, as teenagers mourn, on social media.

And the assault happened in La Trobe Place, just off Chinatown's Little Bourke Street, at a usually busy time: 10pm on a Friday.

The secrecy allowed detectives to identify and then investigate Shenliang Wan, a 22-year-old who was charged with murder on April 27, while mitigating concerns he could leave Australia if it became known the bashing was fatal.

Police suspected at least two other Chinese nationals were involved, including Hanjie Liu. Police urge Mr Liu to hand himself in, but fear he may have fled overseas.

It is believed a third man has been questioned by police.

Mr Wan is alleged to have been the most violent of the group during the bashing.

While Mr Cronin was allegedly punched once outside a pub in Diamond Creek on April 16, Mr Liu died from multiple injuries allegedly caused by a sustained beating.

Yarra Valley Grammar principal Mark Merry said the friends and family of Mr Hu, an international student completing his VCE, were struggling to understand how a young man who lived so peacefully could die so violently.

"He was very unassuming, a quiet, decent and really likeable kid," Dr Merry said.

"So for such violence to be inflicted on him was incomprehensible really.

"He must have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time."

It is unclear why Mr Hu was in Chinatown, but Dr Merry said he attended English language classes in the city.

Mr Hu did not regularly go out, friends said, or attend karaoke bars in the area.

He was not with any other students at the school at the time of the assault, and it is believed he did not know the men who allegedly set upon him.

Since arriving at the Ringwood school to start year 11 last year, he had developed a close-knit group of friends.

On May 5, they joined Mr Hu's parents, and the Melbourne family Mr Hu lived with, in planting a Ginkgo biloba, or maidenhair tree, in his honour near a water feature in the senior school.

It is the national tree of China.

Jeremy Hu was a a 'quiet, decent and really likeable kid'.

Mr Hu grew up an only child about 8600 kilometres away from Melbourne in Qingdao, on the Yellow Sea.

He planned to go to university in Australia next year, and his parents planned to settle here too, Dr Merry said.

Instead, they travelled to Melbourne to be told that nothing could be done to save their son, and that his life support would be turned off.

"They are a very close family, he has lovely parents, so it was an awful situation," Dr Merry said.

"We were communicating with them through a translator and tried to put as much support in place as possible, but there's only so much you can do.

"There was one message that came through repeatedly though from his father: 'justice must be done. I want these people to be caught'."

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make a confidential report at crimestoppersvic.com.au.