Better Luck Tomorrow (2002)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Justin Lin

Writers:

Ernesto Foronda (written by) &
Justin Lin (written by) ...

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Never underestimate an overachiever.

Plot:

A group of over-achieving Asian-American high school seniors enjoy a power trip when they dip into extra-curricular criminal activities.

Plot Keywords:

High School | Overachiever | Asian American | Shallow Grave | Prostitution

Awards:

1 win & 2 nominations

Cast

Parry Shen	...	Ben Manibag
Jason Tobin	...	Virgil Hu
Shirley Anderson	...	Hot Dog Planet Customer
Nanette Matoba	...	Housewife
Kenji Matoba	...	Toddler
Sung Kang	...	Han
Ashley Arai	...	Cheerleader
Danielle Conner	...	Cheerleader
Karen DiTota	...	Cheerleader
Smita Satiani	...	Cheerleader
Kristen Stinson	...	Cheerleader
Jeff DeJohn	...	Ryan
Robert Zepeda	...	Jock
Collin Kahey	...	Jock
Christopher J. Francis	...	Jock

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, drug use, language and sexuality.

Runtime:

101 min | USA:98 min (2003 version)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:R | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:MA | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Alhambra, California, USA

Company:

Cherry Sky Films

Trivia:

The film was financed with credit cards and with money raised independently by the filmmakers. The actors deferred their salaries.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the picture for Virgil's candy bar drive is first shown, the words "Runners Up" do not appear. In the close-up, "Runners Up" appears.

Quotes:

Han: [to Ben] People like you and me, we don't have to play by the rules, we can make our own.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004)

Soundtrack:

Wannabe (Night Version)

Teens Behaving Badly

As a theme, Kids Who Kill has been a staple of movies ever since that cherubic little blond girl attempted to do in her very own mommy in 1956's `The Bad Seed.' Now, almost 50 years later, we have `Better Luck Tomorrow,' a film inspired by the true-life activities of a `Chinese Mafia' made up of a bunch of Asian high school honor students in Orange County, California.

What makes Justin Lin's film even more depressing than the average `disgruntled teen' flick is that the protagonists here represent `the Best and the Brightest' modern America has to offer. Like their far less brainy counterparts in `Rebel Without a Cause,' these suburban malcontents hail from comfortable upper middle class homes and have just about everything they could wish for in terms of material possessions. Yet, unlike the rebels in that earlier film, these are smart, highly motivated achievers who can ace any entrance exam and choose virtually any college they want, and STILL they feel the need to push the envelope of legality and morality - with ultimately fatal results. These are children for whom the good things in life come too easily - yet, like the kids who have nothing, they too need that challenge, that risk, that `rush' that tells them they're alive and in control of their own destiny and not just pawns in a game whose rules for success were prescribed long before they arrived on the scene.

Lin, along with co-writers Ernesto M. Foronda and Fabian Marquez, has fashioned a chilling portrait of suburban life, pinpointing just how ethically rudderless so many of today's young people seem to be. It's particularly disturbing in that these are the very people who seem to have it all together on the surface and can therefore get away with illegality and murder since no one in his right mind would think to suspect them - and, more to the point, these are the people who hold the future of our civilization in their hands. Yet despite the grimness of the subject matter, the film contains an amazing amount of humor, as Lin and his writers take an almost lighthearted, satirical approach to the material, skewering the values of an emptily materialistic society with razor-sharp precision.

If I have a complaint against the film, it is that the writers have made a conscious decision to exclude virtually all adults from their cast of characters. I understand that they are trying to draw us into the world of these teens, but by draining that world of all adult presence and influence, the filmmakers remove a crucially important element from the equation. We want to know what kind of parents these boys come from in order to better understand how these offspring got to where they are today, though, I guess, the point might be that, because these appear to be `problem free' kids who get good grades, the parents treat them with a sort of benign neglect that allows this amoral behavior to flourish. Still, this total removal of the parents as characters makes the film feel less totally honest and realistic than it otherwise might. This insistence on a hermetically sealed, teen-only world also results in a strain on the film's credibility, as when the boys go off to Las Vegas for an Academic Decathlon competition without a single chaperone in attendance. While there, the youngsters end up procuring the services of a hooker and one of the boys even brandishes a gun around the motel room - both events extremely unlikely given the highly litigious nature of our society and the subsequent stringent rules governing such school-sponsored activities.

The acting by a cast of virtual unknowns is outstanding, with Parry Shen, in particular, distinguishing himself as Ben, the likable, too-smart-for-his-own-good model student who functions as the film's voiceover narrator and who finds he has a dark side buried deep within him that he never really knew existed. Jason Tobin, Sung Kang, Roger Fan, John Cho and Karin Anna Cheung, natural-born actors all, offer superb support.

It is the incongruity between the familiarly shiny surface of its suburban setting and the malfeasance at its core that makes `Better Luck Tomorrow' such an unsettling and disorienting social document. We're thrown off balance because these kids seem to embody everything we envision when we speak about the ideal, goal-oriented, forward-looking teen. With its bravely inconclusive and nonjudgmental ending, the film takes us to a world we may not want to visit but which we ignore at our own peril.