Better Luck Tomorrow is the story of four Asian American high school seniors in California. Three of them are incredibly bright, such that schoolwork presets little challenge. The third is incredibly cool and has a car.

The central character is Ben. He's kind of an outsider at school, concentrating only on two things: his studies to ensure a perfect score in the SATs and his CV for his college application. Neither seems much of a problem, but Ben takes it all rather seriously. We quickly glean, however, that, for the most part, it's all hoop jumping, shown symbolically through Ben's obsession with practicing his penalty-line shooting.

Ben's best friend is Virgil. He's the dweeb of the group. Smart as a tack, just dorky and uncool. Virgil's cousin, Han, makes up for Virgil's lack of cool-ocity. As a trio, Ben, Virgil, and Han indulge in petty crime maybe to make a little extra cash, but mostly because they can and it passes the time.

The three become four when they team up with Daric, the president of all the clubs. But their fate really takes a turn one night when they beat up a footballer at a party. Ben expects to be arrested or at least ostracized, but instead, the group's status is suddenly elevated through the roof. Suddenly they're revered on campus, and their lives revolve around crime, money, and drugs.

What story would be complete without romance? Ben is sweet on Stephanie, who's sweet on Steve, a private school rich kid. And there begins the real twist of the story. Steve approaches the quartet to help him with a scheme, and things get really interesting.

At the outset, Better Luck Tomorrow feels a lot like a bunch of other Ethnic Exotic films--a Big Fat Bend It Like Stella Getting Her Groove Back of sorts. But the mood takes a real downturn right around the third act. This coming-of-age story is on some serious drugs.

I almost enjoyed Better Luck Tomorrow. There's many an archetype here. Each kid can be pigeonholed easily, and there's the absence of parents popular in depictions of teenage lives today.

I was captivated by Ben, played by Perry Shen, who managed to epitomize the vulnerability of a teenager, even though he's thirty. And except for the violent turns, I enjoyed the basic direction of the film. Unfortunately the extreme plot leap left me appalled.


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