According to director Justin Lin, this movie is part of the Fast and Furious franchise and retroactively serves as backstory for Sung Kang's character Han. If you're only here for the Fast and Furious connection, just know that this is a low-budget indie movie. That's what led me to this movie, but it was a good movie in its own right. Some of the actors look too old to be high school students, and the ending was darker than I would have liked. But overall, the story was well-told and interesting. The portrayal of Asian-American teens in this movie was refreshing. I recommend it if you are okay with the slower pace of the film.

>"People like you and me, we don't have to play by the rules, we can make our own." I was watching this because of the 20th anniversary of its release and now I see from comments that it is retroactively connected to the Fast and Furious. That is pretty hilarious considering this movie is way different but now that I think about it, Han is pretty much the same cool guy in this.

I found this unconvincing. Gotta respect those associated with getting 'Better Luck Tomorrow' off the ground, reportedly with big help from one MC Hammer - I didn't expect to read that! However, I didn't like it sadly. You can tell if has a competent director in charge with Justin Lin, though everything to do with the plot and characters just didn't do it for me. I found the story too far-fetched, personally. I have no issue watching stuff that is nonsensical, but when it is along those lines then it has to be very entertaining and this wasn't, for me. The actors didn't quite work either, not even Sung Kang as Han - who was the sole reason why I wanted to watch this, given the (loose) 'The Fast and the Furious' connection. Parry Shen is underwhelming, his voice-overs are particularly dull - he is fairly likeable, I'm just not sure Shen (or his character) were a wise choice for lead. Jason Tobin as Virgil is also a tad irritating (as intended?), while Kang is actually quite forgettable; this Han is barely anything like the F&F version, quite the large reach for them to connect the two, if I'm honest. A quick look at the Wikipedia article for this, which also talks about some other interesting production events (Macaulay Culkin?! Big props to Lin for rejecting that, despite the £££), notes that apparently Sung Kang wanted to play Ben - now that could've been something! Obviously it worked out best for him that he didn't, but still... what could have been. Many others love this - who am I to object, really. All the same, I'm glad this was a success otherwise we most likely would not have got Justin Lin atop the F&F franchise; 'Fast & Furious' and 'Fast Five' are my favourites, behind the original of course. Happy that I've now belatedly seen a movie from him away from that world, though.

A surprisingly really good movie. I've heard about it but now having seen it. It deserved all the praise and more. It's just a hardcore excellent film. It's young, there's a few shots that show the indie budget but the characters pop on the screen. I can both see why random people might be offended at this "immoral" depiction of Asian Americans and see why Ebert was so right to defend it. This is exactly the sort of amorality that people who are stereotyped get to experience and this is what everyone should be able to partake in. This film has a really good... and I guess you could call it "Asian Gaze" and that's also interesting. ANyway had a good time would totally watch again.