Better Luck Tomorrow

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Ben Manibag and Virgil Hu are stereotypical overachieving Asian-Americans whose singular goal is to gain acceptance into highly prestigious Ivy League universities. Ben engages in perfectionistic pursuits including learning a new SAT word daily, and trying to best Calvin Murphy’s record for free-throw shooting percentage. Ben reveals that his perfectionism cloaks another side of his life, including toilet-papering houses with Virgil and other petty crimes including the theft and return of computer equipment with Virgil and his cousin Han Hu to earn easy money. Ben is involved in many school clubs, mainly to pad his college application. He makes the basketball team, though he ends up receiving only token playing time. At the same time, Ben develops a crush on his new lab partner, Stephanie Vandergosh, a girl of Asian descent adopted by a white family.

Release Date: April 11, 2003

Genres: ,

Phase:

Classification:

Runtime: 1h 41m

Budget: $250,000

Box Office: $3,800,000

Phase

Classification

Runtime
1h 41m

Budget
$250,000

Box Office
$3,800,000

Parry Shen
Ben Manibag
Jason Tobin
Virgil Hu
Roger Fan
Daric Loo
Jerry Mathers
Biology Teacher
John Cho
Steve Choe
Darian Weiss
Kenny Vandergosh
Justin Lin
Director
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Reviewer:
r96sk
Date:
September 18, 2024
I found this unconvincing. Gotta respect those associated with getting 'Better Luck Tomorrow' off the ground, reportedly with big help from one MC Hammer - I didn't expect to read that! However, I didn't like it sadly. You can tell if has a competent director in charge with Justin Lin, though everything to do with the plot and characters just didn't do it for me. I found the story too far-fetched, personally. I have no issue watching stuff that is nonsensical, but when it is along those lines then it has to be very entertaining and this wasn't, for me. The actors didn't quite work either, not even Sung Kang as Han - who was the sole reason why I wanted to watch this, given the (loose) 'The Fast and the Furious' connection. Parry Shen is underwhelming, his voice-overs are particularly dull - he is fairly likeable, I'm just not sure Shen (or his character) were a wise choice for lead. Jason Tobin as Virgil is also a tad irritating (as intended?), while Kang is actually quite forgettable; this Han is barely anything like the F&F version, quite the large reach for them to connect the two, if I'm honest. A quick look at the Wikipedia article for this, which also talks about some other interesting production events (Macaulay Culkin?! Big props to Lin for rejecting that, despite the £££), notes that apparently Sung Kang wanted to play Ben - now that could've been something! Obviously it worked out best for him that he didn't, but still... what could have been. Many others love this - who am I to object, really. All the same, I'm glad this was a success otherwise we most likely would not have got Justin Lin atop the F&F franchise; 'Fast & Furious' and 'Fast Five' are my favourites, behind the original of course. Happy that I've now belatedly seen a movie from him away from that world, though.
Rating:
5.0