Better Luck Tomorrow's cast include Parry Shen, Jason Tobin, Sung Kang, Roger Fan, and John Cho.

The film tells a fictional story of youth violence, drawing inspiration from several sources, including the Columbine shootings and the murder of Stuart Tay, a teenager from Orange County, California.

[3] Crucial funding for the film came from MC Hammer, whom Lin had met in April 2001 at the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.

[7][8] Ben Manibag is a stereotypical overachieving Asian American in a wealthy Orange County suburb whose goals are to make his high school basketball team, get with his cheerleader crush Stephanie and to get into a prestigious Ivy League university.

Through Daric Loo, senior valedictorian and president of nearly every student club, Ben gets involved in a school-wide cheat sheet operation.

Feeling increasingly conflicted by the expectations others have of him, and horrified at waking up with a nosebleed due to his cocaine use, Ben decides to quit the group.

The next day, while cleaning up the aftermath of the murder, Ben and Virgil hear Steve's phone ringing under the ground in Jesus's backyard.

"[9] While writing the script, he found inspiration in his work as a youth basketball coach and teaching high school students how to make community documentaries.

Lin also brought in an additional $10,000 from artist MC Hammer, whom he had met while working at the Japanese American National Museum.

[11][12] Director Justin Lin later directed multiple films in the Fast & Furious franchise, with Kang reprising his role as Han Lue.

"[19] Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a full four-star-rating and wrote that it was a "disturbing and skillfully-told parable about growing up in today's America" and that Lin "reveals himself as a skilled and sure director".

[21] In 2018, Jane Yong Kim of The Atlantic wrote the film "[complicates] the question of Asian American representation in Hollywood in ways that still resonate deeply today".

[22] Better Luck Tomorrow opened on 13 screens on April 11, 2003,[2] earning the highest per-screen average of any in film release at the time.