Book of Rules (2003) User Reviews

Better than Charlotte Sometimes

[Aizyk · 9/10 · 31 July 2003]

I saw this movie when it screened at the Asian Film Festival of Dallas (a screening which I just now noticed was not listed or mentioned at this movie's official website--why exactly is that, huh??). It was the penultimate film officially scheduled to be shown at the festival and the last one shown that day. It was one of the free films shown in the secondary theater, following a buffet of short films, and I expected that after watching it for about 15 minutes or less, I'd get up and go home. I wasn't enticed by the film's description in the festival brochure--basically the interrelationships of a bunch of 20-somethings, living in a California city, going through changes, at turning points in their lives, blah blah blahhhhh... I expected it to be similar to another film I'd seen at the festival (and earlier, on Sundance) called Charlotte Sometimes, which was a dreary, unimaginative, self-important, pretentious waste of time for the most part, also starring an almost entirely Asian cast of west-coast 20-somethings and revolving around what on the surface seemed to be a similar theme. But, much to my pleasure and surprise, this film gracefully captivated me from the first moments it began, due to its cinematography, and eventually, due to its directing, its script, its cast, and their performances. Just perhaps, I might be more fond of this film than it actually deserves, (I gave it a 9) possibly because I was so pleasantly surprised after expecting another Charlotte Sometimes. But at the very least, this film definitely had a genuineness and creativity that the other didn't.

It's been a couple months since I saw this film at the festival, and after I got home I looked it up here on the IMDB and was surprised that no one had rated or commented on it. Now that I check it again I see that still, no one has done so, and I wonder why. I find that surprising because at the very least, I'd expect some of the many people involved in this film to have supported it here. Odd.

Better than Better Luck Tomorrow

[chrismararac · 19 August 2004]

I liked this movie a lot because it had Asians in it and they never touched upon the fact that they were Asian or made referred them as being Asian. To me, this was the first movie that broke that mold in every shape or form. Other movies depicting Asian actors would praise that it was a movie that showed Asians as Americans, but they always touched upon the fact that they were Asians. For example, in Better Luck Tomorrow, when the two kids were watching a porno thinking it was an Asian female classmate and the topic of who her boyfriend was, one of the kids was relieved that she wasn't dating a white guy. Harold and Kumar goes to White Castle had marketed it saying that it was just two Asian Americans who go on an adventure, but here and there are little speeches and commentary of what it is to be Asian. Not saying that is wrong or anything, but Book of Rules ignored the whole Asian thing and showed a movie with Asian actors just being regular people without having to tell the viewers in any shape or form that they are Asians and they have issues. That was refreshing. I had the chance to converse with Mark Marking also after the showing at the DC Film Festival and he's a great actor and I've been waiting for this to come on to DVD.