Better Luck Tomorrow: Asian Flavor of the Month, or the Beginning of a New Era for Asian Americans in Film?

by Todd Lee
4/22/03

On one level, it’s hard not to root for the success of Better Luck Tomorrow. Though the actors on tour have a disturbing habit of trying to popularize corporate market share-speak (the rallying cry at the Boston after-party was “we want our share of the [demographic] pie”), the tale of the making of BLT is a classic indie film rags-to-riches story, with a racial twist. Filmmakers Justin Lin and Julie Asato literally went into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to get the feature on screen, fending off studio demands to change the characters to “anything but” Asian Americans. Successful entries into Cannes and Sundance film festivals led them to being picked up by MTV. Despite no major ad campaign by the video channel, Better Luck Tomorrow is the current per screen movie champ in the U.S.A., causing studio execs to scratch their heads over a demographic that literally did not exist in the moguls’ marketing schemes. Lumping the Asian American market in with white people, the film industry had found yet another way to make us invisible in American society. BLT, who the actors describe as “the little film that could” may very well be on the cusp of being the breakthrough movie for Asian Americans into mainstream Hollywood.

Among generation “Y” Asian Americans, the film has become a cultural phenomenon. Organizers for the Boston premier originally were given 200 ticket spaces for the opening night showing at the Harvard Square Lowes. They sold out of the original 200 in two days, forcing the theater to switch to a 500 seat theater in the multiplex. The theater was filled with college age and slightly older APA’s. What is all the hoopla about? When asked, many said they were there to support BLT regardless of its merits as a film, citing things like the need to have movies about the true experiences of Asian Americans and the fact that all the major cast members are Asian American, played by Asian Americans (a Hollywood first). Afterwards, reaction to the film as a film was mixed, with some feeling it was a deep portrayal of Asians in America, while others said they didn’t like the ending (no tidy resolution) or were not particularly impressed.

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