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Ben is the son every parent dreams of. Hardworking, intelligent, handsome, and a straight-A student, he’s perfect. His one goal in life is to get out of high school and be accepted into an Ivy League university.

But a perfect life isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Ben becomes bored of doing things for the sake of his college application form. So he gets involved in petty crime, with his friends Virgil and Han, and finds the dark side of life is far more compelling than the bright side.

There’s only one person more perfect than Ben at his school, and that’s Daric, the president of every society and the top of every class. As Ben is to find out, Daric has a dark side to match, and the foursome spiral deeper into a mess from which there’s no easy way out. They start off stealing exam papers, but soon progress to breaking and entering, drug dealing, and eventually, of course, murder, all the while maintaining their grades.

It’s an exciting life, and for a while, it’s every nerd’s dream, as they win the Academic Decathlon and party the night away in an intoxicating mix of drugs, sex and alcohol.

Writer/director Justin Lin’s characters live in a world inhabited only by fellow teenagers. Ben’s family is hardly ever referred to and never appear on screen. Though the foursome’s final crime is inspired by their victim wanting to give his parents a wake-up call, we’re not told just why he’s so angry with them.

As Ben, Parry Shen turns in a good performance — even when he’s being a bad boy, he’s still our good guy, and it’s no wonder pretty-girl Stephanie (Karen Anna Cheung) falls for him over her useless boyfriend Steve (John Cho). Jason Tobin portrays geeky Virgil with just the right amount of awkwardness, but Roger Fan is unconvincing as leader Daric.

For what it is, it’s a well-made movie, but it isn’t sufficiently memorable to make it stand out from the rest.

For more information about the film, go to the official site: http://www.betterlucktomorrow.com/

What the international critics had to say:

"A savvy, seductive and observationally vivid bit of popcorn culture that is every bit as brainy as its characters."
— Duane Dudek, MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL

"'Mean Streets' meets the chess club."
— Scott Von Doviak, FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM

"What helps Lin's feature-directing debut is his insight into the dark side of living up to 'model minority' stereotypes in a materialistic culture."
— David Sterritt, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

"A film that merges cocaine, Ivy League, college applications, the Asian American experience, dark comedy and high school drama while maintaining a personal tone and likable lead characters is just too impressive to knock."
— Kim Morgan, OREGONIAN