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Better Luck Tomorrow: Justin Lin
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For a debut feature, "Better Luck Tomorrow" is a worthy project that's bound to put Justin Lin on the boat to bigger and better things. Considering it's maxed out-credit card budget, it was beautifully shot and looks as if it cost millions to produce. Most of the lead performances, particular by Parry Shen, are outstanding - which is a rare case Asian-American talent. However, "Better Luck Tomorrow" as a whole is a pretentious bag. There's nothing riveting, inspiring or important about it, despite what MTV or mainstream critics says. The only reason the film is getting any notoriety is because it's a well-constructed gangster film (and that's all it is) that features not black or Hispanics, but Asians.
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Better Luck Tomorrow is a thoughtful coming of age story centered on a message of social protest. Don't misunderstand here, the social protest and the comming-of-age are two distinct, unrelated things. Protest wise there is writer/director Justin Lin's complaint that Asian Americans are a completely marginalized piece of Americana. On-screen they are reserved to play the sidekicks, geeky bad guys, and ninja gurus of the cinematic world. Off-screen they are ignored completely. As he e.g'd at a recent press conference, when he walked into MTV studios (the music video-come-teenage marketing megalopolis is distributing Better Luck Tomorrow) he was shown a pie chart of the different racial demographics and it was explained how every single yes-man in the company felt that this movie would sell to their market perfectly.
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In Better Luck Tomorrow, a clique of Asian-American high school students become bad-boy criminals, hatching petty scams as they indulge in drugs and violence. What's notable about them is the way that they remain tightly wired academic stars obsessed with nailing their college apps; they turn delinquency into the ultimate extracurricular activity. That sounds like a trendy notion -- here come the killer geeks! -- except that cowriter-director Justin Lin has captured something new to movies: the tenor and style of an Asian-American youth culture that sees no contradiction between punk aggression and brainiac fervor.
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Better Luck Tomorrow is essentially an indie movie with some more money than usual. It has a bare bones feel to it, and looks a little less polished than most movies. Rather than hindering things, this gives the film a more realistic feel. Things begin really slowly, done to show how dull life can get for Ben and his friends. However, once things begin moving, they move quickly. Here is where Lin shows some of his strengths and weaknesses.
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"Better Luck Tomorrow" is certainly not your average Hollywood teen movie. It's dark and edgy, but not without humor. It pushes the characters to the extreme that (without giving away the ending) they commit a crime that would probably haunt them for the rest of their lives. As much as it is a dark psychological drama about four teenage boys who venture to commit a final act of annihilation, it's ... a poignant coming of age drama about how these same boys bond and try to find their identity and a place for themselves in their chaotic microcosmic world. It's a difficult and challenging movie to make, treading the thin line between exploitation and enlightenment. It's violent, and yet it also tries to comment on its violence.
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A bona fide hit on the festival circuit since its premiere at Sundance 2002, Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow has been the topic of much conversation for two main reasons. First and foremost, the movie is one of the few to feature a predominantly Asian-American cast; secondly, one of the film's post-screening Q&A sessions at Sundance triggered a highly publicized angry reaction from Roger Ebert, when he lashed out at an audience member who offered that Lin had a responsibility to his community and failed to create a positive portrait of young Asian-Americans. With that in mind, several questions surround Better Luck Tomorrow -- does director Lin have any sort of responsibility to his "community"? Is the film really a negative depiction of Asian-American teens? Will this movie merely go down in the annals of film history as the "Asian-American novelty picture that got the world's most powerful film critic in a lather at the U.S.'s pre-eminent film festival"?
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Justin Lin