Director: Justin Lin
Year Released: 2002
Rating: 2.0
It's an amateur Fight Club for Asian teenagers - a morality play that begins with bored honor students making crib sheets (a "starter crime") and ends up with them stealing, selling drugs, doing drugs, having sex with prostitutes (the debate team championships are in Vegas?) and eventually, murdering friends (not to mention attempting suicide). It's a public service announcement disguised as stylized teen entertainment - the absence of these kids' parents (or any adults ... at all) points to them as one of the main problems in their offspring's skewed, shady lives (their demand for excellence and a lucrative future clashes with hormonal impulses and the need to lounge about, do nothing and 'fit in'). The high-strung one, curiously enough, steals all of his scenes (and is a good reason to keep watching) and has several choice lines; director Lin has a couple good ideas that he tries to work in but forgets where the limits of reality end and where Tarantino begins.
