Better Luck Tomorrow

Released 2003
Stars Parry Shen, Jason J. Tobin, Sung Kang, Roger Fan, John Cho, Karin Anna Cheung
Directed by Justin Lin

"Better Luck Tomorrow" is a disturbing and skillfully told parable about growing up in today's America. These kids use money as a marker of success, are profoundly amoral, and project a wholesome, civic-minded attitude. They're on the right path to take jobs with the Enrons of tomorrow, in the dominant culture of corporate greed. Lin focuses on an ethnic group that is routinely praised for its industriousness, which deepens the irony, and also perhaps reveals a certain anger at the way white America patronizingly smiles on its successful Asian-American citizens.

Summary by Roger Ebert

This movie was inspired by the murder of a 17 year-old Asian kid, Stuart Tay, in California's Orange County. The movie isn't based on that story, but it shares a lot of the facts. One major difference is the real murder was premeditated, while this was an act that spun out of control. I mention this because it's hard to believe such privileged kids could do these things, and yet the true story was even worse. We've seen stories similar to this before, and the problem seems to be boredom among suburban kids. Suburbia is a new phenomenon in man's history, and we need to address it. Not until after WWII were kids put in a position where they had so much wealth and so much time on their hands, and this lack of a daily struggle to survive is the driving force behind many problems, including drugs. Life has always required us to strive for food, clothing, and shelter, but those things aren't problems in suburbia. This is one reason the arts and sports are so big, because they give kids a purpose in life other than making money. That wasn't enough for these kids, though. They were incredibly bright and in every imaginable extra-curricular activity, and they still turned into violent criminals. This problem of suburban boredom has grown over the past couple of decades, and our society needs to address it at some point. -- Bill Alward, November 15, 2003