BOOGIE

Name: BOOGIE
Item: BOOGIE
Author: Tess Farrand

"Uneven Sports Drama Marred by Obscenities and Teenage Sexuality"

Family Content: -3 Excessive sex, violence, immorality, and/or worldview problems. (Sometimes excessive content such as violence is in otherwise redemptive movies.)

Entertainment Quality:

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

Credits →

What You Need To Know:

BOOGIE is a sports drama about an 18-year-old Chinese high school basketball player in New York City trying to get a college scholarship. Alfred “Boogie” Chin, a senior in high school, has just transferred to an inner city school so he can get noticed by bigger colleges and receive a basketball scholarship. If his new team can beat a local black basketball phenom, he can be almost assured a college scholarship at a major college with a good basketball program. However, Boogie has an attitude problem and conflicts with his coach. Also, his parents constantly bicker.

BOOGIE is well acted and ends in a rousing basketball game, but the plot meanders a bit before that. Also, the title character is not very likeable. Eventually, Boogie and his coach learn to compromise with one another. However, BOOGIE, the movie, has two scenes where the title character and his parents visit a Chinese fortune teller. Despite this, the woman advises them to be kind and love one another. BOOGIE has many gratuitous obscenities and a scene implying the title character and his girlfriend sleep together.

Content:

(PaPaPa, OO, B, AB, LLL, V, S, A, D, M):

Dominant Worldview and Other Worldview Content/Elements:

Very strong pagan, superstitious worldview, with some occult references and light moral elements, where the characters don’t have much faith or values, there are two scenes where a young couple and (later) their troubled 18-year-old high school senior son visit a Chinese fortune teller and psychic in her occult-looking storefront business, but the advice the woman is shown giving them in her two scenes is to be kind and love each other (the couple was concerned about having a baby on the way), while the son has problems overcoming his parents’ dysfunctional relationship and his own anger, selfishness and rebellion, but he eventually compromises with his coach and apologizes to him and his new school’s principal for his attitude problem, plus the boy’s father says he was very upset at American-Chinese tennis star Michel Chang, a devout Christian, for giving credit to thanking Jesus when he won the French Open in 1989 at the age of only 17 (the father thinks he tainted his cultural achievement as a person of Chinese descent in America when he did so – no other explanation is given as to why this upset him, other than the fact that the father is apparently an Anti-Christian bigot)

Foul Language:

95 obscenities (including many “f” words and a few obscenities in song over the end credits), one GD profanity and one OMG profanity

Violence:

Players get into a little scuffle in one scene, and there’s some physical contact during two basketball games

Sex:

Implied fornication between two high school seniors (one is 18 and one 17 or 18 [her age isn’t clear, but it’s directly stated she’s younger than the boy]), and some other brief sexual references

Nudity:

No nudity, but some female cleavage

Alcohol Use:

Alcohol use

Smoking and/or Drug Use and Abuse:

Smoking but no drugs; and,

Miscellaneous Immorality:

Title character is an American-Chinese high school basketball player at a new school who has problems being a team player and clashes with his white coach, but the boy and his coach eventually compromise to make a go at defeating their school’s rival team headed by a local star athlete who’s black and also conceited, like the other boy and title character.

More Detail:

BOOGIE is a sports drama about an 18-year-old Chinese high school basketball player in New York City trying to get a college scholarship but who faces family challenges and personal problems. BOOGIE is well acted and ends in a rousing basketball game, but the plot meanders a bit before that, and the movie has a strong pagan worldview with lots of strong foul language, some occult references, and a scene where it’s implied that Boogie sleeps with his girlfriend.

Alfred “Boogie” Chin is an 18-year-old star basketball player who’s just transferred to an inner city school so he can get noticed by bigger colleges and get a basketball scholarship. If his new team can beat a local black basketball phenom named Monk, he can be almost assured a college scholarship at a major college with a good basketball program. From there, Boogie can eventually make his way into the NBA.

However, Boogie has an attitude problem that irritates his new white coach. The coach doesn’t think Boogie has the proper team spirit that wins basketball games. For example, he hogs the ball too much and doesn’t pass it to the other players like he should.

On a personal level, Boogie also is bothered by the constant bickering between his parents, including their bickering over his future. Then, when it looks like Boogie isn’t going to get a basketball scholarship, his money-conscious mother pressures him to forego a college career and sign a lucrative contract to play for a professional basketball team in China.

Meanwhile, Boogie starts dating a black girl in his class. However, when he finds out that the girl used to date his basketball rival, Monk, before she met him, the news throws Boogie for a loop. He becomes so upset that he lashes out at everyone.

BOOGIE is well acted and ends in a rousing basketball game, but the plot is sometimes unfocused and meanders a bit before that. Also, the title character is not so likeable, which hampers the viewer’s identification with his problems. That said, his parents aren’t particularly likeable either, so that’s the way the movie builds sympathy for him.

Eventually, Boogie and his coach learn to compromise with one another. Boogie learns to become more of a team player, and the coach realizes he has a true basketball phenom on his hands, and he needs to let Boogie breathe a little bit and enjoy using his gifts.

Sadly, though, the characters don’t have much faith or values. They are a bit superstitious and are focused on getting what they want, not on any higher purpose. Also, the movie opens with the title character’s young parents going to a Chinese psychic. Boogie’s mother has just learned she’s pregnant, and she and Boogie’s father are wondering whether they should marry and raise the child together. Though the Chinese psychic is surrounded by occult signs, she gives the couple some moral advice. She tells them to be kind and love one another, adding, “Love will melt the sharpest sword.” Later in the movie, their teenage son also visits the woman, who gives him the same advice. At another point in the movie, Boogie and his father watch Chinese-American tennis star Michel Chang, a devout Christian, winning the French Open in 1989. Boogie’s father tells him this is the greatest moment in Chinese-American history. However, he complains that Chang ruined the moment by thanking Jesus in his victory speech. Apparently, the father is an Anti-Christian bigot.

BOOGIE also contains lots of strong foul language. In addition, the movie implies in one scene that Boogie and his girlfriend sleep together. Also, Monk later taunts Boogie a couple times about having had Boogie’s girlfriend before she knew Boogie.

All of this immoral, Non-Christian content makes BOOGIE unacceptable viewing.

Sadly, the young rapper who plays Boogie’s rival, Bashar “Pop Smoke” Jackson, was murdered in February 2020 during a home invasion robbery in the California house he was renting in Hollywood Hills.