Category Archives: paper

– Film review “Better Luck Tomorrow”

 

Honestly, I couldn’t understand clearly what the movie wanted to say. Or, I should say that I couldn’t accept the movie’s stereo type. This is because Asian Americans in this movie looked like gangsters. Using their smart brains, they became bad people. Although they all were high school students, they smoked, traded the drugs, and had guns.

Especially, I couldn’t understand the fact which was that young people had the guns in their daily life. Surprisingly, just today, I talked with my classmates about weapons. They have knifes with them for some reasons; to protect their selves, to use something cut, and so on. I was surprised they talked naturally, but at the same time, they were also surprised about me because I didn’t have it. Now, I know this is one of the American customs, but I think few people bring them in Asia comparing with in America. So, this strange mixed culture in this movie might be able to call “the Asian American culture”.

 

In addition, I like the parts which shown the gold fish. The golden fish shown the Ben’s life. First, he did a little bad things like cheating, but he became to do wrong more and more. Watching these flowing in this movie, I supposed that his bright life was gone, and the fish also dead. I know this was because he didn’t feed the fish, but there was not only the reason. His mind shown up his fish. That was interesting for me.

Better Luck Tomorrow

bltThis movie was crazy to me. My thoughts about the movie at first immediately changed after seeing a few parts of the movie. I thought this movie was going to explain about the struggles or challenges of one minority in high school and turned out to be totally different. Shocking parts of the movie was a surprise and it was funny at some parts. I really can say that anything cam happen in peoples lives. This movie makes me want to think all the time about my future. The movie was thrilling and sometimes made me feel in a laughing mood. The movie being made from Justin Lin was cool because you get his perspective in the film and I thought that was so awesome and a pleasure to have seen before my time is up.

This kind of reminded me of 47 Ronin, but in a sense of 4 Ronin. It seemed they were against the world after that fight at that party. They owned the school because before they seemed to be normal citizens in society then the fight happened and they became master less to society. They became the ones who became the masters. They ruled their school and its contents. The drugs, the cheat sheets, the clubs at school and everything in their world. I thought it was a good, but crazy movie with everything that can happen in a  minority high school students life. I can say that, this story is one for the books that can change your perspective on what is happening maybe today in high schools. I stand by that statement what Chico said, “Never trust an overachiever.” Check out the trailer. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpFugFRdaRM -Better Luck Tomorrow

Better Luck Tomorrow

Tomorrow is a new day, but for what? Is tomorrow a new day to repeat what was today? Or is tomorrow a new day to start over? For Ben, Virgil, Daric, and Han tomorrow, is what ever you make of it. Better Luck Tomorrow was a very interesting film. It states simple Asian stereotypes and breaks it, it creates the ideal student image and makes the image crumble. Overall this movie had an entertaining storyline and interesting themes.

The storyline of this movie is that the main character, Ben, is a hard working Asian student who is joining clubs, playing sports, doing extra curricular activities to amp up his college applications. His best friend Virgil is also a very smart student, but is not so bright in his choices and he hangs out with his cousin Han. Han is more of the “bad-boy” of the group. Daric is the fourth member of their circle and he is he president of most clubs on the school. He does an article on Ben and that’s how they meet. Daric offers Ben money to do a cheat sheet for him. Ben takes up the offer and all four of them end up befriending each other. All four of them get into mischeif by drinking, smoking, doing drugs, and even scamming people. They essentially have a “gang” going on and they become the popular students of their school. However, with their great power of being popular and pressures of their mischeif, they also pay hefty prices.

One of the themes of the movie is based on stereo-typing. All of the main characters are different kinds of “Asian.” Also, most of the main characters are very smart and are very capable of getting into ivy league schools because of their grades and their extra curricular activities. A second theme I found would be the image of the perfect model student. Ben got good grades, he studied hard by practicing a vocabular word every day, played basketball, and participated in many different clubs; however, when he befriends Daric he ends up doing drugs, smoking, and drinking. Sadly, he ends up almost killing someone. It’s like the saying, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” As soon as the audience gets passed the exterior of the model student, Ben really is not the model student after all. Lastly, the one theme that stood out to me was the different kinds of pressure. Ben, Daric, Virgil, and Han all dealt with the pressures of school and being able to move onto college. However, when they began to scam people, drink, and do drugs, did it seem like the pressure was really on. Ben was peer-pressured into staying with the group and scamming against Steve (who Ben almost kills). Daric pressures Han into going through with the plan to hurt Steve as well. At the end of the movie Virgil feels the pressure of actually killing Steve and attempts to kill himself leaving Ben and Han very heavy-hearted and Daric unaffected by Virgil shooting himself; but Daric felt the pressure and worry that Virgil would confess their crimes to the police. At the end of the movie all four of them end up feeling the pressure of all the responsibilities they put on themselves and the audience sees how they all broke the mold of the model Asian students.

I think that those three themes are very important to breaking the “images” or stereo-types that are put against the model student or citizen. Things are not always as they seem.

Overall, I enjoyed this movie more than I enjoyed The Beautiful Country because I think that this movie was less upsetting. For instance, in The Beautiful Country, Binh goes through all this trouble and heartache just to find his dad who he doesn’t reveal himself to and I just wonder if it was worth it? Was leaving his mother alone worth it? Was holding his little brother until his last breath worth it? Or the one woman who paid any attention to him who ends up choosing someone else over him worth it? The movie Better Luck Tomorrow was different I feel. We saw how each character benifited and there were multiple things going on in the movie. It could be that I already knew how harsh things were going to be in The Beautiful Country so I knew what would happen, opposed to Better Luck Tomorrow where I did not know what to expect. I believe this movie had a lot to offer for my learning in this class in so far as there were many themes that contribute to the challenging against stereotyping.

Better Luck Tomorrow

“You know how you make decisions that lead to other decisions but you don’t remember why you made those decisions in the first place.”

Wow! At the end of this movie you will be speechless. There are so many scenes in this movie that you want to talk about but can’t find the words to fill what you are feeling.  It was surprising to see that his friend that wanted all the trouble couldn’t handle the pressure of killing someone so he would try to end his life. This movie was not a bad movie it was different. Different then a Hollywood ending or something that was predictable. This movie was definitely different, in a good way.  

betterlucktomorrow01

At the start of the movie you couldn’t help to notice the title ¨Better Luck Tomorrow.” It was a fitting title for the movie. These boys that have everything going for them couldn’t help but want to cause trouble. The movie opens up with two young boys talking about how college is going to be a different experience leaving the audience blind of what they will see at the end. You see Ben as a straight edge kid but gets himself in bad situations. You watch as he starts experimenting with drugs because he tries to keep up his job as being a student, stealing and selling drugs. Better Luck tomorrow comes from how these boys really have no luck rather thats killing a man when you are supposed to be the look out, over dosing on the drugs that was snorted, or not being able to lose your virginity when your craziness comes out when you pull a gun on the prostitute that was hired. The bad luck continues as Ben kills his crushes boyfriend. When he finally realizes that she likes him back he has a big secret that would definitely end the relationship and even put him in prison. 

“Yeah, the library is closed.” You couldn’t help but notice the model minority myth. As the movie progresses you can’t help to notice the nice cars, the smart Asians, and how they weren’t really great in sports.  In the movie you see Ben shooting free throws but see how terrible he is at shooting them. We watch as he is a bench-warmer that never gets in the games but was put on the team because the coach needed minority on the team.  Ben and his friends are supposed to be high school students but are driving Mustangs and convertibles even though they are seniors. Making the impression that their parents had money. In the movie Ben and his friends are always getting over on people because they are so smart that they can manage to out play everyone. 

Better Luck Tomorrow

This film was unique, dark, and had humor to it about suburbia and cultural stereotypes. Throughout the film, especially the first half, Asian American stereotypes were either happening or being mocked. And the interesting thing is at least one of the Asian American characters was using the stereotypes to his advantage. A few that I saw included:

1. Deric, who is Asian American, writes an article about Ben, who is also Asian American, stating that affirmative action needs to take place for Ben. Deric tells Ben to his face that he is the “token Asian” and that’s why he was allowed to join the basketball team. The article also makes Ben popular among his classmates. However Ben becomes angry about the article and tells Deric he didn’t think it was right. Deric laughs and tells Ben he shouldn’t care about what other people think. This is partly when Ben’s life begins to spiral out o f control.

2. All the main characters who are Asian American are the stereotypical “smart Asians” who are trying to get into Ivy League colleges. Ben memorizes and recites a new SAT word every night, all characters take extremes to study, and are overall “perfect.”

3. Whites stereotype Asian Americans in the film: a white male high school student mocks the characters for their “perfect” image, and the basketball couch only has Ben on the team to look good.

4.  Han (I think) who is Asian American made a joke out of the stereotypes.

Overall I think this film is very important because it layers yet meshes the Asian American stereotypes from the perspective of Asian Americans themselves.

The Beautiful Country

All I could think afterwards was “was it worth it?”

I think that this film has an excellent story, but at every turn just kept getting sadder and sadder. Nothing in life ever goes well for Binh as a Bui Doi. He suffers tragedy after tragedy. He finds his mother and so quickly is separated from her. We never find out if she gets to safety or what happens to her after they are separated. I know that Binh sends a letter with money back to her, but what if she’s not there? What if she’s in prison, or dead, or in America, or in another country? Could they ever be reunited?

Tam. TAM TAMIE! This is the major breaking point for. His little brother, left in his charge, has died on the ship of ill conditions. I really thought that Binh taking charge and asserting himself would be a thing that lasted the entire movie. Though he does show more strength later on, it’s not quite with the same voracity as in the moment where he shuts down the gambling game.

I think that the later poker game where he has his break down is such a heartbreaking moment because you can almost see the thought running through his head. If he had known the Vietnamese with GI fathers could fly free, he could have bought Tam a ticket and they would never have landed in Malaysia and met his heartbreaker Ling. They never would have been on the other ship where so many people, including little Tam died. Binh wouldn’t have had to work off debt in barracks like conditions.

I did enjoy the fact that Binh took this turn as his chance to leave. His journey to Texas to find Steve was great. His hitchhiking with the Hispanic family and the Veterans was sweet. I chose to interpret the ending dinner scene as Steve realizing that Binh was his son, and the ending haircutting scene as them assuring each other they would be together until the end.

the end is where we start from

Better Luck Tomorrow

“You happy?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fuck, man. That’s the most truthful thing I’ve ever heard.”

I knew from the start that this movie was going to be a little different, but I didn’t realize quite how drastically until Steve and Ben actually started to become friends. After they talked at the baseball range, I felt there was an odd, genuine sort of bond between them. The kind of bond that you form when you don’t particularly like someone, one way or the other, but you are more or less capable of understanding them regardless of that fact. Even now, given the ending, I’m not certain that initial judgment was necessarily wrong.

My attention to detail isn’t very good at times. I spent the better part of the movie idly wondering, “why are they so desperate to find a pager?” and then, without ever actually turning away from that train of thought, “which of these characters is going to die?” I went over scenes in my head as they flashed across the screen, picking out which characters had a white shirt on, which ones seemed to be in the most danger. I remained under the mistaken assumption that when someone did die it was either going to be Virgil, or it would be Virgil’s fault, somehow. Lacking somewhat in the common sense department, I expected his mistakes to be the worst. In many ways, they were. He tossed guns around, he pulled one on a young woman, and in the end,  I’m fairly certain the gun that fell to the ground was his own. He became so obsessed with his escapism that it inevitably caused his downfall, even if it wasn’t because of a conscious decision on his part. We see him spend the majority of the movie trying to be anyone but himself. He beats the hell out of a boy because he can, and later laughs and weeps, as if he can’t decide why he did it. His cousin is abusive, and takes every opportunity to beat him whenever he can. After they think it’s done, after the body is buried and he and Ben are lying in the son, he says he can’t wait to get away, get out of the hellhole he’s in. And then as the movie begins to draw to a close, when he can no longer escape, he decides to do what many people choose in the end, with that very same gun.

Largely the movie felt to me that it was about people trying to escape from what they were in, and in some cases, from themselves. When Steve actually voiced these concerns (in his own, perhaps misguided way), the people around him lashed out at it because it was to some extent a reflection of themselves.

Better Luck Tomorrow – impressions

In the dark, a gun was heard, a baseball bat was swung, and there was blood everywhere.

This is the moment where it all goes to hell. Ben stares blankly, free from a rage that consumed him only milliseconds prior. The others remain still, the horror of the situation only beginning to settle in. Through the dark, a light illuminates only the group and the mass of a human body. Jesus enters, a plan is made, and then suddenly. . .

 

. . .the body twitches.

If ever there is a change in tone, this is THE moment. This is one of the big reasons why I enjoyed this film – it has the ability to shift so strongly and quickly that it becomes an entirely different animal at the end of it. It reminded me of “Nisei Daughter” and how that author was able to shift the tone of a chapter within the context of her story, like when the main character goes off to be hospitalized for TB. The film itself showed a lot more than I was expected, such as the drug use and nudity, but it really wasn’t a big of deal. Instead, I felt the film really examined the stereotypes (not just Asian American but maybe “nerdy” students in general) and kind of threw them out the window. Ben, while conforming somewhat to the “model student” stereotype, really stretches beyond all of that. He himself doesn’t care if he’s cast as the “token Asian” on the basketball team, and is subjected to the whims of those who take up that cause in his place.

I’ll finish this later!

 

Better Luck Tomorrow Review

“Ain’t no party like a wild cat party, cuz a wild cat party don’t stop”-Wild Cat Cheerleaders

Ben, Virgil, Han, & Daric bit off more than they can chew living a double life in suburbia. With that opening quote in mind, their “extra-curricular activities” was one for the college books.To get into the theme of Asian/American pop culture, I felt that the film gave a very different perspective on the “typical stereotypes” of Asian Americans. The foundation of this film is, “Never underestimate an overachiever”.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Better Luck Tomorrow Feelings and Impressions

Ring, Ring… Ring Ring, was the sound in the opening scene of the film, ¨Better Luck Tomorrow¨, where two of the main character, Ben and Virgil, trace the ringing to a grave of an unknown person barried in the backyard of a seemingly quiet suburban house. These two seemingly innocent young men who were talking of their college applications and futures, coincidentally had a lot more to do with this dead body that one would think they unexpectedly came upon.

First off I must say the film, ¨Better Luck to Tomorrow¨ was a fantastic story that was comical at times and dark at others. It was by far the most surprising movie I have seen of late. From the opening scene I would not have expected the movie to twist and turn into such a dark place and at the end left me with my mouth hanging wide open in surprise.

The film follows four main characters the narrator being the character Ben. All of which are bright students with bright futures. They excel in the classroom, and have seemingly bright futures. However their extra curricular activities are dark and surprising, ranging from planning and executing multiple scams, the selling of drugs, and eventually murder.

Furthermore in regards to this class and Asian American culture I found that this film did a great job of taking the theory of Asian Americans being stereotyped as the ¨Model minority¨ and playing and twisting this idea. Yes, these students were Asian Americans, and were brilliant hard working high school students, however their lawbreaking deeds in which they used their whits and cleverness to pull off, shows that you cannot always judge a book by its cover, and make claims of a person based upon stereotypes. Everyone regardless of race or creed has their own personal problems, aspirations, and personalities, and by stereotyping people you can miss the person behind the mask.