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BETTER LUCK TOMORROW: FAR FROM A FANTASY
Marilyn Quon
4/28/03
In all of the reviews that have come out of the API community
on the West Coast since 2001, the ONE thing we didn’t question
was: “is it real?”. We didn’t question it because we
know the film is based on Justin Lin’s personal recollections growing
up in Orange County, California and on an actual crime that occurred
there. We know about the “parachute kids” who receive money
from parents overseas and function with little supervision. We know our
API youth are not immune to a society that is steeped in drugs, sex,
and violence. To the extent that the film opens up a dialogue within
the API community and within society at large about what kind of society
are we living in it should be supported.
A documentary on the making of Better Luck Tomorrow will air on PBS, May 2,
11:30pm . Better Luck Tomorrow was a labor of love by the directors; actors;
production; crew; veteran grassroots API media outlets like Visual Communications
(www.vconline.org) and National Asian American Telecommunications Association,
and countless volunteers within API community of Los Angeles. Justin Lin worked
his way up through the community media circuit; turned down offers by studios
to run with his script if he changed to non-API actors; and racked up $250,000
in personal credit card debt. Because we all knew this we cheered as API’s
nationwide flocked to theatres on opening weekend to show their support for
a work written, directed, and acted by Asian Americans. It is a breakthrough
film for API filmmakers.
Beneath it’s clever humor and play on sex, drugs, and violence, the film
is deeper than it appears. This film should compel all of us to work harder
for alternative values, lifestyles, and visions. When Malcolm X walked the
streets of Harlem, he inspired a generation of youth to get off the streets.
People get radicalized first by connecting at a gut level with their own oppression:
be it as a woman, an asian American, or a worker. It is up to activists to
illustrate the connections between racism, sexism, and capitalism. It is up
to us to connect with our people in their own space and their own time.
Community based young artists/activists: I Was Born WithTwo Tongues (www.2tongues.com);
Balastan Collective; & Zero 3 are creating a different future. Check them
out May 3, 2003 at Japan American Theatre; 8:30p.m. Also, check out the Visual
Communications FilmFest: May 1-8, 2003 at the Los Angeles Directors Guild and
Japan America Theatre.
