BETTER LUCK TOMORROW: FAR FROM A FANTASY

Marilyn Quon

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.