Movie
Better Luck Tomorrow
Synopsis
A group of unlikely high school students take up crime as an extracurricular activity in this independent drama. Ben (Parry Shen) is a 16-year-old high school student who is the living embodiment of the stereotypical Asian overachiever. Ben obsessively studies even though he gets straight A's, takes part in a dizzying variety of school activities and community volunteer work, which he thinks will look good on his resume to colleges, and is even a member of the basketball team, even though he spends most of the season riding the pine. Ben also hopes being part of the team will help him win the heart of Stephanie Vandergosh (Karin Anna Cheung), a cute but equally obsessive girl who is on the cheerleading squad. When the big man on campus, Daric (Roger Fan), publishes an article in the school newspaper that points out Ben's true role on the team is to add a touch of ethnic diversity to satisfy Board of Education requirements, Ben is so embarrassed he quits the team and imagines his academic future going up in smoke. Daric seizes the opportunity to propose that he and Ben go into business, creating and selling detailed cheat sheets for school tests and placement exams. The cheat sheets are an immediate hit, and soon Ben and Daric advance to other forms of low-level crime, including drug dealing and fencing stolen goods. Before long, Ben and Daric are joined by a handful of friends -- Ben's close friend and part-time kleptomaniac Virgil (Jason Tobin), Hong Kong gangster wannabe Han (Sung Kang), and Steve (John Cho), a kid from a wealthy family who happens to be dating Stephanie -- but they soon find themselves moving deeper into the criminal underworld than they ever anticipated, and things get ugly when they try to move on. Better Luck Tomorrow was enthusiastically received in its screenings at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival.
Cast
- Parry Shen
- Jason Tobin
- Sung Kang
- Roger Fan
- Karin Anna Cheung
- John Cho
- Jerry Mathers
- Aaron Takahashi
- Ina Burke
- Laura Esposito
- Crystal Keith
- Shirley Anderson
- Nanette Matoba
- Kenji Matoba
- Ashley Arai
- Danielle Conner
- Karen DiTota
- Smita Satiani
- Kristen Stinson
- Jeff DeJohn
- Robert Zepeda
- Collin Kahey
- Christopher J. Francis
- Jimmy Lin
- Ryan Cadiz
- Jessie S. Marion
- A.J. Green
- Jaime S. Kelly
- Esther 'Tita' Mercado
- Octavia Osby
- Beverly Sotelo
- Scott McShane
- Brandon Bain
- Jesse Bustos
- Troy Cartwright
- Brandon Dennis
- Ronald Dross
- Christopher R. Edmonds
- Jon Paul Lourenco
- Anthony Moore
- Jason Reyes
- Dominique Ricks
- Khalil Semaan
- Jonathan Uyloan
- Terry White
- Chad Young
- Kenwood Jung
- Jeff Russell
- Darian Weiss
- Alden Villaverde
- Emmie Hsu
- Lily Hu
- Donna Tina Charles
- Juliet Wong
- Justin Murphy
- James Isaac Barry
- Wayne Ford
- Kevin Alfoldy
- Daniel R. Bonneau
- Lisa Grant
- David Laurence
- Nate Petre
- Ramona T. Ramirez
- Stephanie Noel Little
- Tom Chalmers
- Bryan Baluyot
- Mark Baluyot
- Joseph Jaldon
- Marc Montecillo
- Joe Hernandez-Kolski
- Jay Green
- Denise Barnard
- Bruno Oliver
- Fabian Marquez
- Walter Butler
- Christopher Monjoy
- Jennifer Avelyn Wu
- Pauline Kanako Kamiyama
- Lela Lee
- Evan Leong
- Suzanne Keilly
- Shane Kualapai
- Ariadne Shaffer
- Sean Alexander
- Joey Barro
- Ben Donaldson
- Walker Edmondson
- Chris Good
- Diana Bonilla
- Joan Huang
- Sandi Lieu
- Yoojung Han
- Fabian Marquez
- Michael Manshel
- Sung Kang
- Daric Loo
- Steve Herr
- Michael Cole
- Patrice Lucien Cochet
- Donna Tina Charles
- Gustavo Spoliansky
- Justin Lin
- Troy Craig Poon
- Jaime Serene Kelly
- Ernesto M. Foronda
