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43 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hollywood doesn't make movies like this, April 27, 2003
An incredibly powerful and absorbing film, Better Luck Tomorrow is worthy of the best film makers in the business today. That it was made by a UCLA film student is all the more astounding. The film follows the lives of Ben and Virgil, two overachieving high school students whose lives are initially consumed entirely by the question of how to make themselves even more appealing on a college application. As a measure of rebellion and a way to assert themselves outside of the limited confines of a college application, they form a "mafia" ring of sorts with two friends. They start out by providing cheat sheets for money. They progress to stealing school property, and ultimately, begin dealing drugs. In the end, the central theme of the movie is one of control over one's own life, and how quickly that control can be lost even when it appears that the exact opposite is true. The action is fast-paced, the dialogue is crisp and sharp, and the characters are all memorable and textured. Virgil is perhaps the most memorable character from a film in years. This movie is intelligent and stylish movie making at its finest.
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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Driven to Tears, April 25, 2003
Justin Lins Better Luck Tomorrow crackles with as much fury and bravado as Martin Scorsese did in his similar themed Mean Streets. Even though reviews of this film would have you believe that BLT is primarily about the Asian high school experienceit is not. What it is about is the disaffected, prone to violence and crime youth culture: a theme that has been with us for many years probably beginning in the 50s with Rebel Without a Cause or The Wild Ones, when teenagers were discovered by film makers who looked at the Baby Boomer culture and saw dollar signs. Though his film is populated by an almost 100% Asian cast, Lin has decided not to play the Asian Card. One of the ways he accomplishes this is to not have the obligatory scene in which his characters sit down to dinner with their parents who scold and serve up bowls of rice with their advice and warnings. In fact, there are no parents or teachers in this film at all. Lins characters are Universal and therefore represent a whole generation of teenagers no matter what ethnicity. Ben (Parry Shen) is the main character and he is conflicted about life: on the one hand he is hell bent on getting into a good school and playing basketball yet on the other hand, he dabbles in the illegal to make extra money. His friends: Virgil (Jason J. Tobin), Han (Sun Kang) and Deric (Roger Fan) form his posse and they are likewise conflicted. One of the many pleasures of this film is that that Shen and his buddies really care and protect each other which sets this film apart from other youth culture movies and it is refreshing. Better Luck Tomorrow is raw, volatile, disruptive, thought provoking yet tender and loving. It is a testament to Lin and his cast and personally I cant wait for Lins next film, for he is an unmistakably talented new director.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Growing up in America, December 24, 2003
Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow is a story about testing boundaries. Better Luck Tomorrow reminds me more of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment than anything else. The narrative of the story centers on a core group of four teens that, seeking to make money, find some rather creative techniques to this effect. The eventual rise in prominence leads them to a lifestyle of partying to have something to do with their time in the center of a tedious, and boring suburban existence. Ben (the overachiever) as well as his cohort aspires to a future in higher education while, conversely, seeking security in a life of crime. Until they meet Steve, this core group's routine was somewhat predictable. Not to give anything away in the story the whole narrative takes a very different turn from there. Juxtaposing this movie alongside the more benign The Debut is a bit ironic, I think. While The Debut is really about Asian-Americans (in this particular case the Filipino-American community) Better Luck Tomorrow is not about a particular community but speaks to a universal theme of growing up in America. To call it an Asian American movie is, I think a bit of a misnomer. It succeeds as a dark, sassy film, but it fails when it tries to be unconventional. That this breakout movie by Justin Lin is Asian American because of its director and its characters I will grant it. The theme though it is not uniquely Asian - taking for granted that such can be describes as a state. Anyway, this does not take away from the sensitivity with which Lin treats the characters and the angst that they experience - for that this movie, I feel, deserves it accolades. The sad truth is that it is not a movie of what can happen but what is happening. In this case I would have to defer to the viewer to make heads or tails of the excess of the movie. Miguel Llora
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