Better Luck Tomorrow

Rating

Director

Justin Lin

Screenplay

Ernesto Foronda, Justin Lin, Fabian Marquez

Length

1h 41m

Starring

Parry Shen, Jason Tobin, Sung Kang, Jeff DeJohn, Ryan Cadiz, Karin Anna Cheung, Roger Fan, Jerry Mathers, Jessie S. Marion

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
Six Asian high school students spend their academic careers preparing for life after school, each choosing a different path leading to the same outcome in Better Luck Tomorrow.

Ben Manibag (Parry Shen) is an industrious youth whose goal is to score perfectly on college entrance exams while hitting a goal of 80-percent in free throws on the basketball court. Virgil Hu (Jason J. Tobin) is his closest friend, a loud and obnoxious teen who lets his raging hormones control his actions. Ben has affection for Stephanie Vandergosh (Karin Anna Cheung), a cheerleader and the only person in the story whose intelligence may surpass Ben’s. Stephanie, however, is dating Steve Choe (John Cho), an overachiever whose parents love him, provide for him and make him unrelentingly happy.

The bulk of the drama begins when Ben is selected for the high school basketball team based on his skill. An overzealous newspaper editor, and president of all extracurricular clubs at their high school, Daric Loo (Roger Fan) undermines his goals by publishing a story accusing the coach of selecting Ben as part of an affirmative action plan. People take the charge of Ben as the “token” Asian on the team seriously and cause enough of a ruckus that Ben quits the team in disgust. Shortly thereafter, Daric approaches Ben to make quick money making cheat sheets for classmates. The crimes start small but eventually escalate to grand larceny as Virgil’s brother Han (Sung Kang) gets involved in the action.

The characters are incredibly realistic, despite weak performances. The movie uses Words of the Day to propel the story, breaking it into four sections, each fitting perfectly the definition of the word. It’s a technique that has been done a few times in the past but is used to great effectiveness here by director and writer Justin Lin in his third big screen effort.

Co-writers Ernesto Foronda and Fabian Marquez help Lin create a fantastic depiction of high school life. The film feels like you’re watching your own classmates face the rigors of success and failure at the hand of a growing desire to make something out of their lives.

It’s not enough to show the rigors of peer pressure in a traditional sense. Lin, Foronda and Marquez give their characters tough decisions. They use group mentality to play on the weaknesses of the individual keeping them aligned in a common vision. Even when they share the same goal, large fissures form between them, making continued cooperation difficult and dangerous.

Better Luck Tomorrow doesn’t have a problem getting its glossy imagery dirty with surprising outcomes and unenviable positions. These characters seem lost in their own greed, eventually allowing alcohol and drugs to begin clouding their judgment. Violence eventually emerges where perfection once flourished. The film maintains its pristine look juxtaposed with acts of rebellion.

The film doesn’t play to a specific audience despite its all-Asian cast. It maintains its universal theme of “hope for a better future,” notwithstanding its uniform cast. Better Luck Tomorrow has an optimistic outlook that uses pessimistic results in a manner fitting for a film of such solid morality.

Review Written

June 6, 2004