The juxtaposition of Better Luck Tomorrow with Mean Streets and Menace II Society is especially relevant because Italian-American men and African-American men have both found ways to express full-blooded masculinity as performers in American pop culture, Italians in music and sports and movies, and blacks in sports and music. Jewish-American men, members of an earlier model minority, had a problem similar to that of Asians. They did at least have an outlet in comedy, but one that presented them as harmless neuters, except when it presented them as burlesque satyrs--either infantile (Danny Kaye) or grotesque (Groucho Marx), or both (Jerry Lewis).
This was the situation that fueled Philip Roth's great comic outburst of a novel Portnoy's Complaint: Portnoy feels that being trapped as the son in a Jewish mother joke in one stroke emasculates him and prevents this mutilation from having any tragic force. Portnoy feels diminished by the very nice-boy image that made Jews assimilable into the larger society, and his anguish is inescapably comic--even he presents it that way.
Lin seems to be struggling with a similar diminishment of the Asian-American male in the pop imagination. Better Luck Tomorrow is not as original as Portnoy's Complaint. Except for those aspects specific to the model minority blessing/burden, almost every episode and character type has been done elsewhere with other ethnic groups. (In addition, Ben's action at the climax exceeds what we've seen building up in him.) Lin does avoid the liberal trap of making the boys unbelievably virtuous victims, avoids, in fact, all melodrama. In the Asia Source interview he says, "I don't want people to think of them strictly in terms of good or bad. These characters are just kids who have made bad decisions." What's interesting is that in the gap between the fresh details of the story and the shopworn incidents, you sense something that Lin hasn't been able to resolve. I felt as if Lin were not showing the criminal path these boys go down with a liberal's dismay, but fantasizing about going down it.
He's not a flagrant fantasist, which may be why the movie hasn't got the attention it deserves. The movie falls between the I-know-I'm-a-sinner flamboyance of Mean Streets, which is so much bigger an imaginative experience than its sociological grounding, and the responsible probing that Lin claims in interviews was his goal. Lin may be caught in the trap for Asian-American men that he wanted to dramatize--a fear of asserting his identity without regard to the implications. He steers clear of the truly vicious, post-Malcolm X attitude that oppression justifies any response, but neither does he seem to have full access as an artist to what's driving him. The good news from an aesthetic point-of-view is that it isn't readily articulable themes that drive Lin, but expression. The bad news is that the expression is obstructed.
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Article comments
1 - don
Justin Lin fails to say in all his PR work for the film that he stole the idea from a newspaer clipping in the Orange county Regsiter nearly a decade ago. The death scene of steve is an mirrow image of what happened to a Sunnyvale highschool student (Tay). Orginal? no...Mr. Lin , confess you have no talent and that you used that artical is am exact blueprint for your film. At least cut the dead kinds family a royality check
2 - don
Justin Lin fails to say in all his PR work for the film that he stole the idea from a newspaer clipping in the Orange county Regsiter nearly a decade ago. The death scene of steve is an mirrow image of what happened to a Sunnyvale highschool student (Tay). Orginal? no...Mr. Lin , confess you have no talent and that you used that artical is am exact blueprint for your film. At least cut the dead kids family a royality check
3 - Mac Diva
Actually, the notion Asian-Americans are never involved in crime is misleading. Often the crime is off the beaten track, focusing on robbing, prostituting or selling drugs to people in the same ethnic group. Police departments have trouble penetrating such crime rings. We tend to hear about them when something goes wrong, such as robberies when multiple victims are killed.
4 - Eric Olsen
There are Asian gangs pretty much everywhere there is a high concentration of Asians. I knew a an L.A. cop whose partner was killed by a Vietnamese gang member.
5 - Alan Dale
Thanks, all, for writing.
Originality just isn't that important aesthetically, especially when it comes to story elements, and has very little connection with "talent." Shakespeare isn't "original" in that sense.
What's interesting to me about the movie is that the boys who become criminals aren't from the social stratum of Asian-American society that populates the gangs. They're middle-class guys who could easily get in to Ivy League schools. Through these characters Justin Lin is fantasizing about being a gangsta. That's what gives the movie its pull.
6 - jeff
he didn't make up the plot for the movie, that shit happend in orange county in like 1992 except the guy virgil was based on was mexican, the guys went to sunny hills high school, I knew the mom of the guy ben is based on, she was my dads friend.
7 - saska
four boys are bad becase they shoot pepole they hate me virgil is a clown his big ass cosin han he is a touge man and campus daric is so strong to shoot parry shen shawn he do the hunted swamp toar one frend of my is a good person he is nice to me the boys are mean to him and his girlfriend spefanie vander goch is cheerleader thats all you have to obout them shawn likes the preety cheerleader shawn he doesing like me or nothing and they come to daric house daric has a girlfriend is casie and virgil to and han shawn brian they beat up him he make fun of them they fight wth him
8 - saska
rebecca and sam holly juno beth sarah
9 - saska
virgil hu is a clown his cosin han they and steve daric shawn they come to daric house partie throwing stuff chucky and tiffany and wonda betty and rech sam they are my friends because the boys hate them brian is not the one who fell them they are so bad brian his friends are like me but shawn is my nobclahan daric shawn virgil
10 - saska
chucky tiffany wonda are my cosins and sam rech betty holloweentown greshin michael jackson steve daric virgil han shawn misty ms. jim permatteo and her hospan jenna ben marybeth shawn marcus shapiro juno rebecca casie sarah holly beth sam are dead
11 - saska
chucky tiffany brian shawn wonda sam rebecca sam holly juno sarah beth jenna marcus shapiro redman steve daric virgil han casie chris tina kenny sue billy alex clear george tod terry carter billy jennifer tilly wendy kevin jason ashley and ashlyn frankie lan erin lewis stan joan
12 - saska
virgil hu daric loo han lue shawn brian steve misty jenna marybeth ben marcus shapiro jennifer tilly redman stan britney spears chucky tiffany wonda joan sam rebecca sam sarah holly beth juno caie chris helen tina kenny tommy sue howard otis bessy abby pic pig
13 - saska
steve brian shawn daric han virgil casie better luck tomorrow flim
14 - saska
better luck tomorrow
15 - rebecca
better luck tomorrow sarah juno beth holly sam rebecca saska casie kevin wendy jason carrie lewis frankie ashley and ashlyn lan erin clear alex carter billy terry george tod ms. lewton shawn wonda daric virgil han chucky tiffany sam rech betty redman jennifer tilly stan joan chris tina kenny helen roy sue billy jack helga frabitzio tommy ryan rose ruth molly cal lovejoy andy kyle carrie white
16 - sam
rebecca juno holly beth sam sarah han wonda tiffany chucky virgil jack helga daric shawn steve brian wonda sam rech betty cal ruth lovejoy erin wendy kevin lan jason carrie ashley amnd ashlyn frankie jennifer tilly stan lewis steve brian betty rech jack tommy ross chris tina billy heather pina redman han virgil shawn daric britney spears britney spears britney spears britney spears chucky tiffany stan tiffany samantha shawn shawn shawn casie jennifer tilly britney spears britney spears daric han virgil shawn sean kolbey casie heather pina jack ross helga tommy ryan brian shawn misty jenna marybeth ben marcus shapiro britney spears britney spears britney spears britney spears britney spears britney spears britney spears steve brian
17 - britney spears
daric han shawn virgil they kill everybody and steve cho britney spears britney spears steve steve steve hold me tell me that you love me baby casie casie casie sarah beth rebecca sam juno holly britney spears chucky tiffany wonda sam juno sarah beth stan redman joan rebecca sam holly michael jackson michael myer halloweentown sean koibey casie daric virgil shawn han shawn shawn shawn shawn shawn shawn
18 - britney spears
kolbey tommy ryan chucky and tiffany wonda sam caie jennifer tilly stan redman joan and daric virgil steve han shawn casie kenny chris tina billy sue helen roy britney spears britney spears sam rebecca juno holly sarah beth michael jackson michael myer fuvia sam does know chucky chucky tiffany sarah shawn misty jenna marcus marybeth ben sam is mean to me shawn is mad at me