:
Parry Shen,
Jason Tobin,
Sung Kang,
more...
:
Justin Lin
see all cast/crew...
: 
: Paramount
: Drama, Independent, Coming of Age , Crime
: 99 min.
: English
: English
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Recently Rented By jwalton
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A group of unlikely high school students take up crime as an extracurricular activity in this independent drama. Ben (Parry Shen) is a 16-year-old high school student who is the living embodiment of the stereotypical Asian overachiever. Ben obsessively studies even though he gets straight A's, takes part in a dizzying variety of school activities and community volunteer work, which he thinks will look good on his resume to colleges, and is even a member of the basketball team, even though he spends most of the season riding the pine. Ben also hopes being part of the team will help him win the heart of Stephanie Vandergosh (Karin Anna Cheung), a cute but equally obsessive girl who is on the cheerleading squad. When the big man on campus, Daric (Roger Fan), publishes an article in the school newspaper that points out Ben's true role on the team is to add a touch of ethnic diversity to satisfy Board of Education requirements, Ben is so embarrassed he quits the team and imagines his academic future going up in smoke. Daric seizes the opportunity to propose that he and Ben go into business, creating and selling detailed cheat sheets for school tests and placement exams. The cheat sheets are an immediate hit, and soon Ben and Daric advance to other forms of low-level crime, including drug dealing and fencing stolen goods. Before long, Ben and Daric are joined by a handful of friends -- Ben's close friend and part-time kleptomaniac Virgil (Jason Tobin), Hong Kong gangster wannabe Han (Sung Kang), and Steve (John Cho), a kid from a wealthy family who happens to be dating Stephanie -- but they soon find themselves moving deeper into the criminal underworld than they ever anticipated, and things get ugly when they try to move on. Better Luck Tomorrow was enthusiastically received in its screenings at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
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| disappointing
by rmarkd
July 13, 2005 - 10:49 AM PDT
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3 out of 4 members found this review helpful
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I had a better title, but I see "manfarang" took it.
I wanted to like this movie and recommend it as there is a dearth of movies with Asian male leading roles. Sure, you got your Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, but, hey, do you see a trend there? Unfortunately, as the movie went on, I just got more and more disappointed.
BLT is a story about a group of high school Asian guys about to transition to college. High School is a breeze; they have the good grades, they follow the "guidelines to a good college" perfectly, taking the right extracirricular activities, studying for the SATs, etc. But all of a sudden, they decide to take part in increasingly dangerous crimes (starting with making cheat sheets, moving to drugs, theft). That was my biggest problem with the movie. These kids, who seem to do everything they can to secure their future in a great college, would all of a sudden turn to crime. The reason for this isn't clear, if there is a reason at all. I don't think there was.
If that's not enough, enter the mysterious Steve. rich, smart, Ivy League college destined, but basically a weirdo who pushes his girlfriend Stephanie to the lead character, Ben. He then has another plan never fully explained, but hey, he's Steve, and I guess we should expect that.
I think there is a good story about kids like this, and BLT tried to tell one, but went overboard. 6/10.
PS. Listen for the Dust Brothers "Fight Club" type score... or is it just me? I could have sworn some background music were variants of the Fight Club soundtrack. |
| Better Luck Next Time
by manfarang
October 7, 2003 - 6:42 AM PDT
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12 out of 13 members found this review helpful
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I suppose the real question is, do we really need yet another version of Rebel Without a Cause, this time with Asian-American actors in their mid- to upper-20s cast as high school students? Talk about overachievers - these kids are academically gifted, participate in loads of extra-curricular activities AND still manage to find time to run several profitable illegal operations, including burglary and drug-dealing.
Although the film Yellow (the OTHER Asian-American teen angst film) had its flaws, it at least left me with more of a feeling of empathy for the characters. (Actor Jason J. Tobin appears in both films and essentially plays the same character, although in BLT he's supposed to be intelligent but you wouldn't know it from the things he does or says.) It's rather hard to feel much empathy for the upper class kids of BLT; there is no clue given regarding the motivations for their need to achieve or why they seek out the thrills of criminal activity. Adults are reduced to Peanuts-cartoon non-entities. Actually, I can't recall a single Asian adult character in the film.
From the opening scene it is obvious that the film is building up to some defining moment of violence. Still, the character who commits the savage violence came as a surprise to me, primarily because the film didn't give me adequate motivation for the level of his brutality. I actually was enjoying the film until it succumbed to the cliche of violent death and the unspoken but predictable coda, "None of us was ever the same after that fateful day ..."
Positives are that I thought most of the actors did a good job, the film was fairly entertaining, and it is nice to see Asian-American actors playing the leads in any film. Although Better Luck Tomorrow is certainly better than many other films of the same genre, it's a bit disappointing that it didn't reach its full potential. But considering that this is director/writer Justin Lin's first major film, it's a pretty good beginning. I look forward to his future films.
RE: DVD features, it's very simple - Play Movie, Chapters, Set-Up.
That's it.
No director's commentary, no movie trailer, no additional features. |
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GreenCine Member Rating
(Average 6.19)
181 Votes
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