04/10/2003
Landmark all-Asian-American film breaks all the rules
Amardeep Gill
What comes to mind when you think of Asians in cinema?
Perhaps, this comes to mind: Kung-fu fighting by martial artists, exotic women, the Chinese Mafia, delivery boys, computer science nerds and broken English. Director Justin Lin’s new film shatters these misconceptions.
After about 10 credit cards worth of debt and an arduous struggle to find distributors, the tremendous commitment of an unpaid staff and a little financial help from one of the unlikeliest of places, MC Hammer, “Better Luck Tomorrow,” a film by UCLA graduate Lin, is finally coming to theaters.
The dark comedy explores issues of identity, teenage rebellion and violence from a perspective that every person, irrespective of ethnicity, can relate to. The film follows a group of young teenagers who stray from their studious paths and embark on a self-destructive journey that leads to sex, drugs and violence.
As a landmark film, “Better Luck Tomorrow” is one of the first American movies to portray Asian Americans in roles that are both complex and layered.
Also, the picture has the unique distinction of being the first Asian-American film to have ever been purchased at Sundance, as well as the first acquisition for MTV Films.
“This is the first time that MTV actually acquired a film,” Lin said. “The people at MTV feel it is important to get this film out to its demographics.”
Lin also points out the importance of getting a good audience turnout.
“This film will shock Hollywood and send a message to film executives that there is a market for films that have Asian Americans in lead roles,” Lin said.
According to Kathy Nguyen, event coordinator of the film for the UCI campus, even though MTV Films has picked up “Better Luck Tomorrow,” there is still some skepticism about how it will perform in American markets. For that reason, the film is being released in only three cities during its first week.
Initially, only Lin and Ernesto M. Foronda worked on the story, but then Fabian Marquez, the co-writer and post-production supervisor of the film and a UCI film studies graduate, got involved in the project. The three worked together on the film script for almost two years.
“The idea was to explore teen angst and violence from a perspective that we could relate to,” Marquez said. We started it in 1998, and we shot our first scene in February 2001.”
It has been a struggle to get distributors to sponsor this movie despite the fact that the film got a positive response from audiences. According to producers of the independent film, the distributors were afraid of how well a movie with Asian-American lead characters would do at the box office.
“You can tell they loved the movie, but they just couldn’t wrap their heads around an Asian-American cast,” Marquez said.
Some distributors demanded that the ethnicity of the characters be changed to an all-Caucasian or all-Latino cast.
“We even heard this from Asian- American distributors,” Lin said. “One of the major points of this movie is to see beyond the ethnicity of the characters and just view the story of the film as something anyone can relate to, regardless of race.”
Other distributors were simply afraid of the controversy that the movie might cause. Some distributors offered to buy the film, but only at the expense of compromising the vision that the production team had for the story. The film story is controversial because it depicts young high school students who quickly go down a spiraling path of drugs, sex, crime and violence.
Part of the ensemble cast, actor John Cho advised young Asian Americans interested in acting to pursue the craft without hesitation, regardless of the lack of diversity in film.
“There are a lot of Asian-American kids who are interested in a career in the arts and who are not pursuing it,” Cho said. “I would say to young actors to be nice to yourself. Give yourself a chance and just go for it.”
By making this film, the production team hopes to “blast open” new doors for Asian-American actors, in particular, to expand the types of roles they are offered.
Parry Shen, the lead character, Ben in the picture explained his frustration with the lack of complex roles for Asian-American actors.
“I just went to audition for a pilot last month for a character that was a pizza delivery boy, who is Chinese and speaks Spanish,” Shen said.
The film has gotten some criticism due to its negative theme. A critic at the Sundance Film Festival asked, “How can you make this immoral movie? Don’t you need to represent your people in a positive manner?” Karin Anna Cheung, who plays Stephanie in the film, adds that after the critic made that remark, many of the other critics started to respond in support of the picture.
Among them was Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert who argued that a Caucasian director would never be asked these questions. Ebert contended that Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever they want to be without having to worry about how they represent their people.
According to the producers of “Better Luck Tomorrow,” the only thing Asian about this movie is the ethnicity of the actors. Other than that, the story has a universal theme that every American can relate to.
“It is all about getting more Asian-American faces on screen and our love and support for the script,” Cheung said.
