Everybody’s been playing this Roger Ebert clip, which was taped at the Park City Library following a 2002 Sundance Film Festival screening of Justin Lin‘s Better Luck Tomorrow. But it reminded me how Lin copped out on Tomorrow‘s ending after his film got picked up by Paramount. In so doing Lin conveyed to the suits that he was basically looking to play ball and make commercial films. And that’s what he wound up doing.
After the Paramount acquisition Lin got pressured about the original ending (in which the lead guy, played by Parry Shen, gets away with murder and isn’t all that bothered about it) being amoral. So Lin changed it so that the film implied at the very end that Shen would probably get caught for his crime.
Lin’s capitulation is partly what led to my posting this imaginary conversation piece.
