The Move “Better Luck Tomorrow” by Justine Lin

The move, illustrates an image hidden behind well-mannered students of Sunny Hills high schools who are trying hard to over achieve. The main characters Ben and Virgil is showed as those over achievers of high schools who are known for their grades and extracurricular activities. Even though the parents were never shown on the movie, it is assumed that the parents think the kids are studying staying overnight whereas meanwhile they push themselves into deep deep trouble.

At the start of the movie, the scene begins with both Ben and Virgil being interrupted while having a sunbath with the ringer of one of their phones after they successfully buried a body in Virgil’s backyard. Later on, it continues to depict a chilling hidden side of suburban affluence. Its heroes need no career advice; they're on the fast track to Ivy League schools and well-paying jobs, and their straight-A grades are joined on their resumes by a almost doubtful display of extracurricular credits: Ben lists the basketball team, the Academic Decathlon team and the food drive.

'Better Luck Tomorrow' has all the traditional elements of the standard high school picture. They may be Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, but their generation no longer obsesses with the nation before the hyphen; they are Orange County Americans, through and through, and although Stephanie's last name and Caucasian little brother indicate she was adopted, she brushes aside Ben's tentative question about her 'Real parents' by saying, 'These are my real parents.' This movie is a genuine model for not the standard segment of Asian Americans in American film.

Like African-American films that take race without any consideration and obtain on with the characters and therefore the story, Lin made a movie where race isn't the purpose but simply the given. It did not simply state that the whole Chinese race is obedient, disciplined and very academically successful. Being a little spoil or following a crime due to a simple mistake has nothing to do from where you belong. The movie shows how a student with perfect scores in almost everything slipped a little and got involved in a whole crime world.

Ben shows that he has little respect for educational integrity, as he allows other students in class to cheat off of him for no monetary reward. Moreover, the film, existing without a true antagonist of any kind, begs the question: who do we blame for Steve's death? The film does not provide a guideline or direction for being a rebel, nor does the film provide an image of a guy being wrongfully accused for something he hasn’t done. There’s no scapegoat image either for the crime of Steve's murder when the easy route would be to turn Ben into a villain and have him get his comeuppance in the finale. This film is more of an educational lesson. 'Better Luck Tomorrow' isn't only a spine chiller, not only a social critique, a parody or a sentiment, yet these during an unmistakably observed, splendidly made film.