Justin Lin Returns, Refreshingly, to Indie Roots

It turns out that having “creative differences” with a major Hollywood studio and Vin Diesel can do wonders for your artistic soul.

Filmmaker Justin Lin got on a fast track to the big time when his low-budget independent feature Better Luck Tomorrow garnered raves upon its 2002 premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. It launched him into directing a series of Hollywood blockbusters, including several entries in the Fast & Furious franchise and the last Star Trek theatrical feature, before exiting 2023’s Fast X while it was still in development.

Now he’s come full circle with this powerful low-budget indie drama similarly receiving its premiere at the fest. The film currently seeking distribution marks a striking artistic return to form for Lin; here’s hoping he continues to resist the urge to blow things up for a while.

Based on Alex Perry’ Outside Magazine article “The Last Days of John Allen Chau,” the film depicts the tragic story of John Chau (Sky Yang), a 26-year-old American evangelical Christian missionary who undertook a dangerous journey to the remote North Sentinel Island, a restricted area of India, in the hope of converting its Indigenous tribespeople who have resolutely shielded themselves from the outside world. It did not end well for him. (If the story sounds familiar, it was also told in 2023’s acclaimed documentary The Mission, currently screening on Disney+.)

The troubles he would face are made vividly clear in the film’s harrowing opening scene set in 2018, in which he canoes to the island and attempts to communicate with the natives from the shore, only to encounter a barrage of very accurately aimed arrows.  

Cut to a flashback several years earlier, at a birthday gathering where his complicated family dynamics are laid bare, including the deep desire of his father Patrick (Ken Leung, Lost, as eloquent with his pained facial expressions as with his dialogue) that John follow in his footsteps and become a physician. But the young man feels a different calling in keeping with his deep faith. He attends Oral Roberts University and trains to become a missionary, learning survival skills at a boot camp before heading overseas, where he becomes friends with other young missionaries, including the happy-go-lucky Chandler (Toby Wallace, The Bikeriders).

The screenplay by Ben Ripley (whose credits include Source Code and the Flatliners remake) occasionally lacks narrative clarity with its frequent flashbacks and shifting chronology. There’s also too much emphasis on a subplot involving an Indian police inspector (a very good Radkhia Apte), defying her superiors to embark on a desperate effort to find John before he can go back to the island and cause harm either to the natives (by introducing foreign disease) or himself. The film feels a bit overstuffed with incidents, from the father getting arrested by federal authorities for illegally prescribing painkillers to John’s awkward attempt at a romantic tryst with a beautiful young backpacker that results in her reporting him to the authorities.  

But the storyline’s denseness seems forgivable since it provides important insight into the psyche of its main character, whose passionate need to proselytize is treated in admirably non-judgmental fashion. Many viewers will no doubt feel initially disdainful of John’s recklessly dangerous pursuits, but the film presents his inner struggles so empathetically that by the end all you feel is sadness for a life tragically lost.

Lin’s considerable filmmaking skills are evident throughout, not only in the intense opening sequence that will have audience members ducking in their seats (you’re grateful it’s not in 3D), but also the haunting montage at the end — in which John’s final encounter with the natives, rendered in abstract terms, is beautifully interwoven with scenes of him getting lost as a child at a carnival before being found and comforted by his relieved father.

Yang, previously seen in Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon films for Netflix, anchors the film with his emotionally and physically demanding performance (he lost 30 pounds during filming) that showcases not only his character’s religious fervor but also his sense of fun and good humor. It’s a charismatic, star-making turn that should receive plenty of well-deserved attention.