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What you have just seen is a clip from “BLT: Genesis”, which is a documentary on the film “Better Luck Tomorrow”. After viewing this clip, let me ask you something... what comes to mind when you think of Asians in movies? After reading the results from a survey I conducted, many think of martial artists, exotic women, delivery boys, computer science geeks, nail parlors, laundry mats, and broken English. Director Justin Lin’s new movie, “Better Luck Tomorrow”, shatters these misconceptions and is on the verge of making history. Today, I am going to attempt to persuade you into viewing and supporting the film “Better Luck Tomorrow”. I feel that I am a credible source because I recently attended a MAASU (Midwest Asian American Student Union) conference in which one of the actors, Roger Fan, came to speak to us. He showed us “BLT: Genesis” and spoke about the film. The audience, including myself, attained further information through the MAASU brochure and the “Better Luck Tomorrow” website. I will speak about three aspects of the movie: How BLT differs from other films, obstacles it has had to overcome, and reasons to why you should see and support the film. BLT differs from other films in many ways. First off, it’s a predominantly all Asian American cast. Rebecca Louie, author of “Hoping for a little bit of ‘Luck’, found that according the 2000 census, Asian Americans make up 4.2% of the U.S. population, but a Screen Actors Guild study from the same year also indicated that only 1.7% of all lead roles cast went to Asian/Pacific Islanders. Now, you may have seen films that show Asians or Asian Americans starring as the main characters, but another main difference between BLT and other films is that the main characters do not play stereotypical roles. Parry Shen, another actor in BLT said, "For the first time, we are not on screen for some function just because of our faces. We don’t perform martial arts, we aren’t struggling with our identity as Asians and we aren’t the translator in a scene. There is no specific reason for being on screen besides just being regular characters that everyone can relate to.” Jack Song, a Cal sophomore agrees as he says, “I’m excited about the movie because it deals with universal things that youth can relate to, but it’s an Asian American film and it’s really empowering.
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