Eunice Lau brings to bright light a subculture of young Asian men in Gwinnett County, Atlanta who seek livelihood, community, and identity through gangs and rap music. It’s an enlightening, at times disturbing, but humanizing look a how these disenfranchised, struggling young men, the sons of Cambodian and Korean immigrants, cope with numerous childhood traumas that cling to them into maturity.
The film centers mostly on aspiring hip hop performers Harrison “Vickz” Kim and Jamy “Bizzy” Long. We see them in the studio and in their homes recording their explicit music and performing at a raucous rap concert. This footage is cut with interviews that dive into their stories, related without sentiment or self-pity, about immigrant parents who worked long hours leaving the boys to survive on mean streets where racism and bullying pushed them to seek refuge in often violent gangs. Bizzy shares how he escaped as a middle schooler at a local strip mall of Korean-owned stores, where he learned to “live to fight another day.”
The third main subject in the film is former gang leader Eugene Chung, a native of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn where he grew up thinking he was Italian and emulating the mafia leaders in his neighborhood. He recounts his journey from emulating these gangsters as a child, eventually amassing power and money as a gang leader dealing in drugs and guns.
But none of these stories end well. Eugene ended up serving time in prison and regrets his former life as he tries to steer young men away from the seduction of a life of crime. Kim’s hardworking father nearly went bankrupt after his son ran into trouble with the law. Lau’s film gives welcome voice to the parents who share stories of how their quest for the “American Dream” often meant neglecting their children in the process and the wives and partners of the men, young women saddled with children who try to keep their families from slipping over the edge. “A Town Boyz” is an impressive, bold portrait of lives on the margins; an unvarnished peek into communities often dismissed, ignored, and misunderstood.
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