[quote="pinback"]a lackluster ending[/quote]

I've been back and forth over the ending in my head since I first saw the film a while ago. I'm not [i]certain[/i] lackluster is the descriptor of necessity, though certainly in the way it plays out it's more ambiguous than I wanted at the time of seeing the film. I remember reading somewhere that it had been changed at some point before release, but don't quote me on that. Still, the main character "gettin' with" the girl after what had happened is the perfect ending, both as a mark of the guy's descent and as a demented parallel to all the teen coming of age films the movie stands in contrast with.

Unrelated notes:

It was eerie how well I could map all the main characters to individual overachieving (and, on occasion, underachieving) Asian kids I knew in high school. I still keep in contact with a guy who, at that age, was [i]just like[/i] the kid who was playing with the gun all the time and who... you know, [i]spoiler[/i] at the end.

The climactic scene is perhaps the most "in" I've ever been with a film. I mean I was [i]right there[/i], my guts in my hand. I don't usually react to movies that directly, but I couldn't even sit down while that bit was playing. I tip my hat to the director on that one.

Three out of four stars is pretty good, though.

Straight-A Asian-American (AAA?) high school students gradually form a gang running scams, then selling drugs, then... other stuff.

Very skillfully, artfully, and imaginatively done. Well acted. However, less persuasive is the boys' decline (or perhaps ascent) into gangster-hood (a narrative, voiced by the cleanest-cut, goody-goodiest of the group infoms us "drugs were the next logical step", rather than letting the script convince us of it.) That, coupled with a lackluster ending prevents the movie from receiving full marks.

Original and creative, though. Three stars.