Better
Luck Tomorrow, directed by Justin Lin, is a coming-of-age
story about Asian Americans in Orange County; much of the
filming is at Cypress High School. When the film begins,
Ben Mandibag (played by Perry Shen) and Virgil Hu (played
by Jason J. Tobin) hear a beeper from a dead body in a
back yard. To explain the paradox, the film returns to
a time four months earlier, and Ben's voiceovers also provide
explanations along the way. The central character, Ben,
is then sixteen years old; he lives in a middle class gated
community of townhouses. An overachiever, Ben focuses his
life on getting to college. He has superior grades, learns
a new polysyllabic word each day, volunteers in a community
service activity, is trying out for the school basketball
team, has part-time work, and is a virgin. Although he
is attracted to Stephanie Vandergosh (played by Karin Anna
Cheung), an adopted Asian, and does homework with her,
she is the girlfriend of Steve Choe (played by John Cho).
Under peer pressure and an absence of parental guidance
(as parents are not featured in the film), his life nearly
unravels as the story unfolds. After he joins the basketball
team, Daric Loo (played by Roger Fan) writes a story on
him for the school paper, identifying him as a token Asian
American member of the team who is merely a benchwarmer.
After the article appears, Asian students hold up signs
and chant until the coach relents, assigning Ben to play,
but he then resigns, eschewing the tactics of "affirmative
action" on his behalf. Daric, whose parents live in
Vancouver while he is financially secure in a well-furnished
house, then asks him to prepare exam cheat sheets for $50,
as one of his confederates steals copies of forthcoming
exams; after initially tearing up the request to do so,
Ben justifies his compliance in part as a way to save money
for his future college expenses. In time, however, Daric
becomes the leader of a gang consisting of Ben, Virgil,
and Han (played by Sung Kang). At first, they buy goods
at one store, and then return them to another to accumulate
a little capital. Soon, they are involved in theft, drugs,
and sex parties. On one occasion they go to a party, a
white student taunts Daric, the two tussle until Daric
pulls out a gun, and the white boy is beat up. Meanwhile,
Steve asks Ben to take Stephanie to the Senior Formal;
despite Ben's misgivings over being used as Steve's gigolo
stand-in, he does so in order to get closer to her. The
gang wins the academic decathlon and goes to Las Vegas
to compete (and win), but not before Daric arranges to
have a prostitute service the group, starting with Ben.
However, the prostitute leaves when Virgil pulls a gun
on the woman after she says that she "wants to get
rough." Steve, who lives in a beachfront home, next
asks the gang to rob the place while his parents are out
of town. The gang agrees but secretly decides to "teach
him a lesson." One night, the gang starts beating
up Steve, a gun accidentally goes off, and Steve is apparently
dead. When he shows signs of life a few minutes later,
Daric asks Virgil to hold him while asphyxiating him. At
this point, the film catches up to the early frames of
the film, with a beeper ringing from a body buried in a
back yard. Next, Virgil tries to kill himself at home,
Han calls 911 after hearing a shot, and the gang gathers
around Virgil in the hospital. Daric now fears that Virgil
will rat on him when he emerges from his coma, but he has
also lost the respect of Ben. The noir ending leaves in
doubt whether law enforcement authorities will bring anyone
to justice, though the film title suggests a happier outcome
than the last frames of Better Luck Tomorrow. The film
identifies several familiar themes. The "model minority" is
exposed as overstressed to succeed, and success has a heavy
psychological price. The film's absent parents are presumably
also overstressed from making money, thereby explaining
the inability of the children to resist least-common-denominator
peer pressure. The film also pretends that Stephanie's
adoption by Caucasian parents has produced an ethnic confusion
that might be corrected if someday she can locate her birthparents.
A less successful element is the pretense to Asian multiculturalism,
with Parry Shen playing the part of a Filipino character
but exhibiting no characteristic Filipino traits; in contrast,
the films The Debut (2001) and The
Flip Side (2002) focus
more on the quality of interpersonal relationships than
on achievement neuroses. Thus, Better Luck Tomorrow is
largely about young Chinese Americans, providing many valuable
insights. MH
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