👋 Hi again, blog!
🎥 This week's film was Better Luck Tomorrow. It was directed by Justin Lin who also worked with the Fast & Furious movies. Better Luck Tomorrow is an independent film that held many similarities to Hollywood narrative films, but it includes more Asian American representation. Hollywood tends to oversexualize Asian women's bodies and hardly gives Asian American males any character other than the geek or the Kung Fu guy. Justin Lin tried to change that pattern through his film.
👍 This film started off strong by showing us a dead person's hand peeking out of the ground. We get a glimpse at the main characters, Ben and Virgil, and just by their way of speaking and the limited actions they make, we could already tell they weren't your typical Asian American guys (at least, according to Hollywood standards). We get to see them go from being the nerdy kids to practically becoming gangsters. I thought this film really captured how one decision could affect your whole life through those characters. I also thought this film did a really good job at representing Asian American males in a new way.
😵 There were a few scenes in this film that made me feel dizzy. The camera movements succeeded in making the audience feel the unstableness of the situations that the characters were in, especially near the end of the film. I kept feeling off after the climax of the film had occurred. I kept feeling like Ben wasn't the good guy Stephanie (his crush) deserved.
👀 Would I recommend this film? Yes, if you want to see something different. This film was very good at keeping my attention even though, at moments, I wanted to stop watching it.
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I see where you're coming from regarding the fast cuts and camera movements. I haven't seen any Fast and the Furious movies, but I'm curious how Justin Lin is as an action director given the way he uses camera movements in Better Luck Tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteThat's a really interesting point
DeleteI definitely agree with you on how the film made me want to stop watching at some points, as well as Stephanie not deserving Ben after he had literally just killed Steve... Along with Tom, I also liked your observation about the camera movements contributing to our engagement with the characters. I feel like if I were to watch this film again, I could get a better sense of what you were experiencing as well.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting take on the film and, in my experience, it really does get better when you watch it more than once. Some of the subtle stuff around genre and appropriation is more obvious when you are not surprised by the plot.
ReplyDeleteLoved how the emojis represented your emotions toward the film! I also talked about the ways Asian women and their body were presented in the film. Ownership among women and their body a toxic trait created by men to display forms of power. I don’t think the film would of took the same approach if directed by an Asian American woman.
ReplyDelete