Saturday Night Fever of Its Day

Rating: 6/10 (7 February 2002)

My son explained to me that he didn't exactly approve of this movie, his argument being that if you make a film about an aspect of Asian-American culture, it wouldn't hurt to put a coupla Asian-American actors in the lead roles. (There are Asians in the movie, of course, but they're bad guys.) To be honest, I have no idea if street racing is an Asian-American thing, but if my son is right, then this movie becomes the Saturday Night Fever of its day, Fever also being a movie based on a magazine article, where the subculture in question (in SNF's case, gay disco) is homogenized for mainstream consumption (goodbye, gay disco boys or Asian speed fanatics, hello Italian-Americans and Vin Diesel, who may be of unknown ethnicity but who is probably not of Asian descent). I give it a 6 on a scale of 10.