This story is a very true character study that I can attest to of the freedom that everyone grants you when you maintain a scholarly and overachieving front, maybe not as to the extremes of the murder as shown in this movie but still very real. This shows the lesser characterized side of intellect, how you use it when your bored and you realize you can outsmart everyone around you and expand into drugs, scams, etc. Operate with impunity and because your keeping grades and appearances up no one suspects a thing. I'm not saying its true for everyone but this movie is a very real look when your bored, stuck in suburbia , and decide to make the rash jump into more "interesting" pursuits and figure your smart enough to get away with.The film itself never leaves you bored even though its not flashy. The characters themselves are very believable and conceited in their own greatness. The story is well paced and shows the gradual progression into the dark underbelly when temptations meet brains that think they are beyond limitation. And despite what others try to slap on as a detractor to this film, race really doesn't have anything to do with it, its just the group of kids portrayed in the film. Their grades, immorality and decisions they make have nothing to do with race

The biggest flaw with this film is that all the main actors are ridiculously too old, all anywhere from 10-13 years older than their characters are supposed to be, which was hard not to think about while watching the film, and it made all of them not very believable.Another flaw was how NONE of the parents of any of the main characters were depicted whatsoever which caused the film to be very strongly lacking of a human element. This, though a considerable detriment, was not extremely significant.What hurt the plot line the most, was how they were able to pull a gun on one of the popular kids at a private residence in front of dozens of people and NO ONE called the cops on them. All it would have taken was one of the witnesses to call the cops, and they would have 12 witnesses standing against them in court along with depicted injuries of the person who they severely beat, and in an instant they would be off to juvi, all of their suburban study oriented dreams shattered, but instead, they were able to somehow use this incident to gain notoriety, and begin a whole sting of criminal schemes.The worst thing about this is how they were suddenly able to become serious drug dealers as a result of one, in normal cases, extremely stupid prank. This made no sense, and wasn't explained whatsoever. It's not impossible, but the fact that it wasn't explained and the main character says "oh and then switching to drug dealing was the obvious next move." proves that the writer had no idea what he was doing and no idea where to begin filling in this plot hole. Why would a drug supplier share his supply with 4 punk teenagers without instead moving into the territory with his own faction. Basically if they DID become drug dealers in this way, they would have become someones subordinate and have to answer to them, whereas in the movie, no drug supplier at all was spoken of or depicted, and they apparently answered to no one.In the end it's a poorly conceived plot line with average to trite writing and stagy clichéd plot setups. This film really does not have much original to offer, but for the undiscriminating viewer who enjoys crime dramas, it's not without entertainment value. It's sad to say that the only original thing in this movie that I've never seen before is an all Asian cast in an English speaking film.

This film had potential. Lots and lots of potential. But sadly, like most MTV productions (save for Napoleon Dynamite), it falls flat on its face toward the midpoint. There really is no direct plot (except something about an academic decathalon), and the characters offer no sympathy whatsoever--they're all snotty Dawson's Creek-esquire rich brats. And for the record, there is one big, huge continuity error in the beginning of the movie: two of the main character discover a dead body in the backyard of a house and one of the character's voice-over declares, "It was the first time either of us had seen a dead body." Bull. Bull. Bull. You put the body there, moron! At the end of the film, they murder a fellow Asian student and put his body in that exact same spot! It's a shame that they didn't try to make a better Asian teen-oriented movie. See Attack the Gas Station! instead.

Justin Lin does a great job in displaying Asian Americans in a light that reveals that Asian Americans are no different than your average Caucasian Americans. Although it somewhat reconstructs the model minority image, it deconstructs the image that Asian Americans also participate in similar activities than their Caucasian neighbors would participate in if they had similar social milieus - that is, gang-like activities. I think Lin had something going, and towards the end, the movie lost some of its initial attraction. I think the movie could've stayed in the same direction that it was starting on, that of the SAT cramming and the trouble that they brought as well. Parry Shen does a great job as does John Cho.