BOOGIE

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.