Better Luck Tomorrow

Filmmaker Justin Lin takes a contemporary stereotype - the overachieving Asian-American high-school student - and subverts it with dark irony. Ben (Parry Shen), a senior in wealthy Orange Country, falls in with a group of students who, when not acing exams and joining extracurricular clubs, turn their ambition to more lucrative pursuits: selling answer sheets, scamming stores and dealing drugs. Told in flashback, this auspicious and often wry observation of contemporary values was hailed by critic Roger Ebert as a "brilliantly made film."