April 15, 2003

Better Luck Next Year

The hoopla over Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow is half-deserving, half-imaginary. The film itself is relatively solid. There are cracks as well as unnecessary elements thrown in just to anti-Asian-fy the film, but nonetheless it comes out strong at the end.

But what disappointed me thoroughly was the audience. If this is such a landmark work that's supposed to bring awareness to Asian-American filmmaking, tell me why I saw nothing but 16 year old Asian kids at the screening where both Justin Lin and Perry Shen were present. After all, it was in Times Square, NYC, where you'd expect the most cultural non-Asians to be around. But no, the audience was yellow and adolescent as fuck. Something went wrong in the calculations.

Maybe it's because MTV Films is the distributor. Do people assume this film is for teenagers and walk on by? If so, it's a shame. Although it won't come close to cultural standards such as Goodfellas and Boyz N the Hood, it's definitely a start of a movement.

Just like the theatre is virtually filled with African Americans when Deliver Us From Eva is playing, maybe this is the the niche that someone needed to figure out: Who cares if non-Asians don't attend these shows. 4% of the American population is Asian, and a good portion of them are in the $50K+ bracket. Those numbers are big enough to drop some dough into producing a nice "Asian" film that doesn't insult the audience. Here's hoping for better luck next year.

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"$50K+ bracket"...

hmmm...

There needs to be a brown movement now. A film that will help us recognize the brown community here in North America. B3nG4Li represent~!

"most of them are in the $50K+ bracket"

In what universe. Hell, many of the Asians that I know would be happy to be slightly below that figure.

It will take time and patience and pro-activity to effect a Nu Asian Power structure.

BTW, nice changes and yay for comments.

first of all... its good to see the comment back in your page. i also like the design. lke cultural movies? go watch "bend it like bekham"... authentic indians right down to the old school benz!

Asians, per capita, make the most money. And while it probably was wrong of me to uset he word "most," I can readily replace it with "many" and it would work well.

i think the reason for the majority of asian teens in the theatre could be attributed to the sort of grassroots campaign that was started by parry to spread the word about BLT.

read more about it here: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-grassroots11apr11,1,4098968.story

if that didn't work, BTL has the text here: http://www.betterlucktomorrow.com/article.php?id=41

challa.

Priya, Yeah. I'm sure you're right to the extent that a lot of kids came from schools in which the film was promoted. But nonetheless, I didn't really see enough non-Asians there to make me think that this really was a major release. But that again makes sense since MTV Films didn't really advertise it much anyway. Let's see how the next "BLT" fairs.