Better Luck Tomorrow (2002)

I saw this film at the Toronto film festival, and was completely absorbed in it. It is both an intelligent observation of teenage culture and a great achievement in style and cinematography Follows in the footsteps of masterpieces like "Goodfellas" and "Menace to Society". Like them, this film plunges us into the lifestyle of its characters, and unrelentingly attempts to relate us to them. One wouldn't think that it is possible to be so consumed by a world occupied by those quiet over-achievers we overlooked in high school, but this film offers a darker, edgier vantage point that is so involving we cannot look away.

What I enjoyed so much about this film is that its characters are intelligent, but their intelligence is constantly overwhelmed by hormones and social pressures typical of the American teenager. It begins as a story of four Asian-American high school students, all with promising futures and crystal clean records, who decide to enter a life of crime and violence. Their crimes are easy because their reputations as do-gooders make them inconspicuous. The film follows Ben, whose richly observant narration offers a voyeur type insight into their declining souls. We watch, with unblinking eyes as harmless vices transform into drugs and murder. Soon enough the lives of these characters collapse, rendering one a surviver of a botched suicide attempt, and another a paranoid killer. The brilliance of these characters is not simply an excuse for their crimes, but an added weight on their shoulders. Their intelligence breeds conflict; they are smart enough to know that their lives are being jeopardized, but logical enough to see that when the extra pennies are so easy to attain, the crime is to lose the opportunity.

The crown jewel of this film is Stephanie, strongly portrayed by beautiful Karin Anna Cheug, possibly the hottest new thing to hit Hollywood in years. Her character is strong, on par with the boys in terms of intellect and achievement, but her heart is gold. Mark my words, after the release of this film, this girl is going to be on the cover of every magazine in this country. Wonderful girl, Wonderful film.

Fmovies: Made for only $250,000, Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow is a dark comedy about a group of over-achieving Asian-American high-school students in Orange County, California whose boredom and feelings about being outsiders lead to acts of petty crime and ultimately to serious violence. It is a film that challenges assumptions about Asian-Americans as asexual computer nerds, showing that they can be just as shallow and bereft of values as any white-skinned American. Better Luck Tomorrow has been hyped in the Asian community as something imperative to support. As voiced in an "open letter" from actor Parry Shen, who plays the lead role of Ben in the film, "It is not just a movie. What hinges on this release is so much larger than the film itself." While I support the fact that this film is a welcome antidote to the traditional representation of Asian-Americans on film, it must be judged on its merits rather than as a political statement.

The film is narrated by Ben Manibag (Parry Shen), a 30-year old actor playing a 16 year old student. His narration sounds as if he's rehearsing for a high school play, speaking lines like "the morning after I lost my virginity, we won the national championship" and "You never forget the sight of a dead body. But then again, I was experiencing a lot of things for the first time. I guess it's just part of growing up." Ben and his friends Han (Sung Kang), Daric (Roger Fan) and Virgil (Jason J. Tobin) have everything going for them: top grades, near-perfect SAT scores, lots of money, extra-curricular activities, social clubs, and not even a parent in sight to call on them once in a while. "Our straight A's were our alibis, our passports to freedom. As long as we got great grades, out parents didn't care where we were" Ben explains.

Shot in the MTV-style with jump cuts and rock music, the film opens with the discovery of a dead body underneath the lawn of a suburban backyard, then flashes back four months to tell its story. After Daric writes an article about Ben being the token Asian on the basketball team, he invites Ben to join with his group in their questionable adventures. They start by selling "cheat sheets" to students, then to running a credit card scam at a computer store, snorting Cocaine, selling drugs, and ultimately to violence. They seem to love their bad boy image, it's all good clean fun. "It felt good to do things that I couldn't put on my college application," explains Ben. "Besides, it was suburbia -- we had nothing better to do." Other good things to do involve a cliched romantic triangle between Ben, Stephanie Vandergosh (Karin Anna Cheung), Ben's lab partner, and Steve (John Cho), a rich kid with an attitude that does not probe any depths.

While the movie is a sincere effort by a talented new director, it did not ring true for me. Although a film with an Asian cast (the first since The Joy Luck Club) that avoids ethnic stereotyping was long overdue, I was unconvinced by the one-dimensional performances and felt that the shift in the main character's personality, even accounting for years of suppressed anger, was too abrupt to be believable. To make a coherent statement about the pressure put on Asian teens to excel would have been welcome. Instead, what Better Luck Tomorrow offers is a Quentin Tarantino wannabe, a hopped-up exercise in "cool" with extended shots of brutality and an ending that can politely be called morally dubious. N

The biggest flaw with this film is that all the main actors are ridiculously too old, all anywhere from 10-13 years older than their characters are supposed to be, which was hard not to think about while watching the film, and it made all of them not very believable.

Another flaw was how NONE of the parents of any of the main characters were depicted whatsoever which caused the film to be very strongly lacking of a human element. This, though a considerable detriment, was not extremely significant.

What hurt the plot line the most, was how they were able to pull a gun on one of the popular kids at a private residence in front of dozens of people and NO ONE called the cops on them. All it would have taken was one of the witnesses to call the cops, and they would have 12 witnesses standing against them in court along with depicted injuries of the person who they severely beat, and in an instant they would be off to juvi, all of their suburban study oriented dreams shattered, but instead, they were able to somehow use this incident to gain notoriety, and begin a whole sting of criminal schemes.

The worst thing about this is how they were suddenly able to become serious drug dealers as a result of one, in normal cases, extremely stupid prank. This made no sense, and wasn't explained whatsoever. It's not impossible, but the fact that it wasn't explained and the main character says "oh and then switching to drug dealing was the obvious next move." proves that the writer had no idea what he was doing and no idea where to begin filling in this plot hole. Why would a drug supplier share his supply with 4 punk teenagers without instead moving into the territory with his own faction. Basically if they DID become drug dealers in this way, they would have become someones subordinate and have to answer to them, whereas in the movie, no drug supplier at all was spoken of or depicted, and they apparently answered to no one.

In the end it's a poorly conceived plot line with average to trite writing and stagy clichéd plot setups. This film really does not have much original to offer, but for the undiscriminating viewer who enjoys crime dramas, it's not without entertainment value. It's sad to say that the only original thing in this movie that I've never seen before is an all Asian cast in an English speaking film.

Better Luck Tomorrow fmovies. 4 Asian high school friends seem to have it all, good grades, a bright future where colleges are going to be fighting over their applications and the world is their oyster. But beneath the suburban undercurrent lies a group of the most jaded Asian-American kids who get in over their head in illicit activities.

The film is narrated by Ben, a smart kid who is going about his usual run of the mill life. Eventually he is approached by Derrick a born class leader who finally mentions to him, Why are you being a second class benchwarmer on a basketball team?? When you can be your own man?

It turns out Derrick first starts asking Ben to write up cheat sheets for $50 bucks, and then with the enlistment of scrawny Virgil and his no nonsense cousin Han, the guys end up with a reputation that leads to bigger and riskier things...

The film has a great fresh style and pace to it, Justin Lin's direction is impecable. Slow motion edits, fast cuts, perfect timing with the soundtrack, good cinematography are all apparant and enjoyable and not to annoying as they sometimes can be when they are thrown at you constantly. What's probably the most telling thing about this movie is the focus on Asian-Americans in a not so seen light. All these kids have the world ahead of them, perfect grades, homes, money, but they are all dead inside and lacking direction. It doesn't help also that their parents in the film are nowhere to be seen, and no doubt non existent. All the trappings of success and great intelligence that the kids have is no match for there lack of faith and spiritual deadness which Better Luck Tomorrow shows off impecably!

Most important is the camradare these kids share and the wonderful casting that was chosen. Derick exhudes confidence and smarts like a crooked politician, Han is the cool guy doesn't say much looks like he can break your face with his intesnse stare, and Ben is the guy we follow through all his dillemas and trials with much anticipation and hope. But the best is saved for the scrawny Virgil played AMAZINGLY by Jason J Tobin.

He's the small kid who ends up a lot like the whipping post, and over compensates his rash bravado and toughness to hide his obvious weaknesses and extreme vulnerability. He is the guy you can't help smile and appreciate but also pray for knowing that he is in someway doomed cause of his lack of self esteem.

Wonderful film

Rating 9 out of 10.

First of all, this is a film about wealthy middle-class Asian teens. Too much smoking? Too much profanity? It seems a lot of IMDB users are out of touch with suburban teen culture.

One user even complained about the "the ubiquitous melancholy feeling you'll have throughout watching the movie (which) will stick with you hours after thanks to the resolutionless ending." That's like complaining about Nietzche because he's depressing.

That said, this is an EXTREMELY good movie. Anyone trying to understand today's affluent youth culture would do well to start here. It is true that the leads in this movie did not have to be Asians, but anyone who thinks this is a valid complaint should go visit a SoCal high school and check out the student population. Guess what you'll find? And while you're at it, could you please name a drama starring Asian people? Joy Luck Club? Okay, what else? Exactly.

I think it's also important to point out that MTV had no part in the creation of this movie. All they did was see the movie AFTER it had been made and agree to distribute it. Makes you wonder how valid most of these comments are when the writers don't even bother to read about the movie to understand it better.

"Better Luck Tomorrow" has attracted much IMDb comment despite being shown in few theaters and then over a short period. Now available in DVD it will clearly garner a slowly widening audience by word of mouth. And it should.

This idie film operates on several levels. The story of a loose cohort of high school high achievers, mostly Asian-American, they are simultaneously self-challenged to make it to the Ivies while at the same time drifting in an affluent bubble of moral emptiness. They volunteer for public service project for points to strengthen their "apps" without any real commitment to the values of service.

Ben is the central character, a youth of untapped ability and boundless promise who seems unable to find any real meaning in his academic goals. The others are a cross-section of teenagers running from the daring to the reckless to the pathological.

He slowly falls hard for Stephanie, a beautiful classmate (actually almost thirty when the film was made but you'd never know it). She has a manipulative, rich boyfriend, "Stevo," and her relationship with him is both resistant and dependent. Girls in this film are ancillary arm candy for the males. Stephanie, who has issues of her own, she refers to her obligatory therapist, knows she's dominated by Steve but resisting submissiveness is very hard. Asian-American or not, Stephanie is a very recognizable teenager. Not too different a story from many high school buddy films, that part.

What is different and distinctive about this story are two factors. The first is that Ben and his friends start running scams at stores to get money for stolen merchandise returned for refunds and then graduate to both selling and using drugs. Their criminal activities become both more sinister and essentially aimless as challenge predominates over possible gain. To describe more would be to give away a genuinely original story line.

The second factor that separates "Better Luck Tomorrow" from the usual run-of-the-mill teen angst flick is the total absence of adult authority figures- parents, teachers (one biology teacher has a brief, colorless classroom presence), police (a sole cop is shown in a couple of seconds in a hallway, almost an opaque shadow). These kids have wheels and money but there's no evidence of their being accountable to anybody. Their ambitions and schemes are their sole interior reality.

Many IMDb comments are from Asian-Americans who view the characters as reflecting their own background. There is a brutal fight scene between the Asian boys and white kids at an unsupervised (of course) booze bash but much of the behavior that escalates into disaster isn't limited to any racial or ethnic group. I'm not even sure I feel comfortable dismissing the behavior as just another example of SoCal teen life.

The acting here, by a cast unknown (check IMDb for their names) is outstanding as is the direction and cinematography that pictures a slightly bleached suburb mirroring the superficiality of the central male characters. Anomie rather than evil is the malevolent controlling force for most of the boys.

A very disturbing film-one that does and should arouse discussion.

8/10.