Asian Americans Support 'Negative' Image

April 10, 2003 -- It's rare that a film by and about Asian-Americans gets national exposure, so there's been a lot of anticipation surrounding this weekend's release of Justin Lin's Better Luck Tomorrow.

Better Luck Tomorrow depicts the lives of a group of supposedly perfect kids who live a double life of crime that starts with selling tests but spirals into drug-dealing and death.

Ironically, the less-than-savory portrait has been winning the film more support from the Asian-American community, rather than losing it.

It's clear that the film challenges a perception — the image of the well-mannered, law-abiding, overachieving Asian-American.

But the dissonance between the filmmaker's Asian-American identity and his intentions has still stirred some anger and confusion.

When the film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival last year, an audience member criticized Lin at the Q&A session afterward for his nihilism.

"How could you, despite your talented cast and great production values, make such a bleak, negative, amoral film? What kind of portrait is this of Asian-Americans? Don't you have a responsibility to paint a more positive and helpful portrait of your community?"

Ironically, the criticism was an unexpected boost for the film, when Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert challenged the audience member.

Ebert says he doesn't usually make comments in Q&A sessions. But he recalled the confrontation in an article for his newspaper and how he told the audience member, "You would never make a comment like that to a white filmmaker."

"This film has the right to be about these people, and Asian-American characters have the right to be whoever the hell they want to be. They do not have to represent their people," Ebert said.

More Than Counter-Stereotype

The attack was not a one-time event. In a later screening, another audience member criticized the film along similar lines — and found a defender in New York Times movie critic Elvis Mitchell.

Since its appearance at Sundance, the film's producers have screened it for a number of film festivals, as well as Asian-American organizations, where it has gained both supporters and critics.

Even as some Asian-Americans are contacting friends and family to make sure BLT, as the film has come to be known, has a respectable showing at the box office on opening weekend, there have been others who resent the negative portrayal.

However, supporters say what makes the film so successful that it isn't about a simple black-to-white reversal of stereotype — but that it speaks to the more general themes of teenage life and suburban nihilism.

That's precisely what Lin says he set out to do. He says he thought the film depicted a reality among teenagers of any race.

"I've spent a good amount of time with youth and whereas my generation was constantly looking to find their identity, this generation seems to be shopping for their's. Constantly," Lin said.

Lin said he wanted to give Asian actors a chance to play characters that were three-dimensional. Too often when Asian-Americans are on screen in Hollywood, they're there for a reason specific to their ethnicity, he said — like a doctor or a kung-fu master.

He said in BLT, the roles are "normal and non-ethnic specific — a rarity for most ethnic actors but almost always never the case with Asian actors."

Lin made one previous film as a UCLA film student in 1997, called Shopping for Fangs. It was screened at a number of film festivals, but met little critical or financial success.

Critics have noted that while BLT has a cast that is mainly Asian-American, the movie is not an identity film. There are only tangential references to the characters' backgrounds.

In a letter urging Asian-Americans to support the film, cast member Parry Shen said he was particularly proud that many moviegoers said that within the first five minutes, they forgot the racial identity of the cast.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, critic for the respected Chicago alternative weekly The Reader, said the film is about "more than a simple counter-stereotype."

"It's telling that the kids being shown, especially the overachieving narrator-hero, wind up seeming much more American than Asian," Rosenbaum said.

Who Will Be the Asian Spike Lee?

The debate about Lin's portrayal of Asian-Americans has not been the only contribution to its buzz.

The film has been praised by highly regarded critics like Peter Travers of Rolling Stone, David Ansen of Newsweek and The Hollywood Reporter.

The praise is even more special because the film was a truly independent production: It was financed by the director, a motley crew of his friends and supporters, and their credit cards.

After the heated discussions at Sundance, BLT became the first Asian-American film to be picked up for distribution at that film festival, and the first-ever acquisition by MTV Films.

Asian-Americans are looking to BLT as their breakout film — their version of Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It — which paved the way for a wave of African-American directors.

BLT's producers say Hollywood is sitting on at least three other Asian-American films — and BLT's fate will determine whether or not they ultimately see the light of day.

While the names Ang Lee and Jackie Chan are familiar to most Americans, they are from Asia — and there have been many more Asian-American filmmakers who have enjoyed a stunning debut, only to stall on their subsequent efforts.

George Huang has hardly been heard from since he directed the critically acclaimed industry satire Swimming with Sharks in 1994, Kayo Hatta has not directed a film since Picture Bride, which won the Audience Award at Sundance in 1995, and Tony Bui has yet to break out, despite winning three major awards at Sundance in 1999.

"The success of BLT is definitely a film that will determine the fates of a lot of other Asian-American films," publicist Laura Kim said. "We all have really high hopes for this film and for what it may do in terms of opening doors to others."