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Breaking the celluloid ceiling

By Gavin Tachibana | In the Fray
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E-mails about it have been popping up in my inbox more often than Viagra ads. Asian American magazines have been treating it like long-awaited salvation. It's the coolest thing since tapioca pearl milk tea (and better for us too), hotter than a lowered Honda.

All of this hype presages the release of a movie called Better Luck Tomorrow, scheduled to hit theaters in major cities April 11. BLT for short, it promises to present Asian Americans the way we've yearned to be portrayed for all our sheltered lives: as ass-kicking hoodlums who instill fear into the hearts of white people.

The movie centers on a group of Asian American high school students, academic overachievers who resent the boredom of their tract-home suburb in Los Angeles. For excitement and rebellion, they turn to a life of gun-wielding violence, Las Vegas hookers, and on-campus larceny. The film follows the teens from party to party, through romantic liaisons, as they win one academic decathlon championship after another. The group's violent escapades escalate until the teens finally find themselves in over their heads.

Since its premiere on the festival circuit last year, BLT has wowed audiences from Asian American festivals all the way to Sundance, winning praise and generating controversy along the way. One such episode has virtually become the film's calling card. During the question and answer period following the third Sundance screening, a white man with a misguided sense of political correctness expressed outrage at the amoral portrayal of the Asian American people. This prompted film critic Roger Ebert to stand on his seat and shout, "What I find very offensive and condescending about your statement is nobody would say to a bunch of white filmmakers, 'How could you do this to your people?'" A few days later, MTV Films signed BLT, making it the first film with an Asian American cast and director to be picked up for distribution at Sundance by a major studio. For many Asian Americans, BLT marks the first time they will see themselves on the big screen in an honest light or in major movie multiplexes alongside Hollywood blockbusters. If successful, the film could open the door to more realistic portrayals of Asian Americans all over the mainstream media.

Since the birth of cinema, Asian Americans--actors and audiences alike--have sought roles and characters that stretched beyond the stereotypical: the dragon lady seductress performing ancient sexual secrets with her pinky, the oriental Buddha-shaped man dispensing fortune cookie advice, the flying martial-arts hero who knocks out twenty ninjas in a single roundhouse kick. But even in 2003, roles beyond these old stereotypes hardly exist.