My local paper gave it a "D", so I don't know if I want to check it out but may end up doing so. And a totally useless fact: I went to junior high with the director, Justin Lin.
I believe they're Chinese. Reminds me of honor roll kids I knew back in high school who ran with gangs and robbed Chinese restaurants. As for the reviews, there really isn't a consensus. Roger Ebert strongly defended the film at Sundance and gave it 4 stars out of 4.
I was getting the same vibe from the reviews I saw. My friends in HS were Korean and Chinese kids with generally working class immigrant parents who prayed to the god of college admissions that junior Kim would end up at an Ivy. My friends, when they weren't beating people up, aced AP math and cut gym class to smoke weed. Funny group of guys.
You sure they weren't Filipinos? Same behavior. Just funnier accents, I suppose. Instead of junior Kim, it would be junior Ramos.
No, they were largely Korean, but the two Filipinos I did know behaved roughly the same way (though one was a chick). One went to Johns Hopkins, not sure where the other went, but she had photos in her house with Imelda Marcos and her mother posing together. Apparently they were lifelong friends. Scary stuff. Neither of them were the "would be thugs" that my chinese/korean friends were though, but it was a small sample size. I always laughed when they would say "Don't mess with Charlie Quan" or something, talking about a guy that was 5'6" and 130 pounds. Of course, he carried a switchblade the size of his arm, but it's hard to take a gangster seriously when they guy is half your size. I did know one kid, not sure if he was Filipino or Thai, but he dropped out sophmore year of HS to deal drugs full time and ended up in jail by Senior year. Odd side note, about 3 weeks ago I realized the place that my korean friends bought their stash from in HS is 4 blocks from my current apartment. So I live in a "kind buds" neighborhood .
Same way but to a lesser degree with Japanese kids. I knew two brothers, the older one got really screwed on acid, the younger one just drank a lot, ended up going to Yale.
We were into purchasing all sorts of ninja equipment from Johnson's World on 14th St. Cept for butterfly knives, Pops brought em back from the homeland every time he went. Maybe I should have drank brewhahas and smoked weed in HS. I would have got into G'Town instead of BC.
The main guy in the movie was the guy at the first party in "American Pie" who kept saying Stifler's mom was a MILF.
[R] ********[R] from here down*************** I saw this movie yesterday and liked it, though it wasn't quite as excellent as some of the reviews suggested. It was a thoughtful look into the rebellion of academically successful children gone awry, but I would have a hard time suggesting that it was more than that. It was portrayed at a bit more of a gangster movie than it really was, I was expecting a sort of asian "boyz in the hood" story to unfold, which it didn't. The "milf" guy you were referring to is in the movie, though he's not the main character. I did think the girl in the movie though, pictured below, was pretty cute (better looking in the movie than in the photo below).
I assume that was The Register, which is probably sucking up to the upper middle-class parents of potential Asian thugs/honor students by trashing the film. I've yet to see it (but I plan to), but I assume it doesn't flatter Orange County suburbia or the American Dream, which is why The Register probably whacked it.
I caught it yesterday. A little disappointed. The story was weak and it lost some steam at about the midway point. Still, it kept me interested and I'm glad I saw it. Definitely worth $4.95, a bargain in NYC.
Saw it at the same exact theater. Lost interest after the birthday present scene. It was decent up to that.