Despite the palm trees and ubiquitous long-legged, silicone-bumped blondes, Los Angeles is a tough town, particularly for the rangy young Thai immigrant lad so honestly and affectingly portrayed in Province 77 (2002). Violence is never far from the surface of L.A.’s sun-drenched streets, and the restaurant business is vulnerable to cruelly confrontational racketeers. When a family eatery begins to attract a thug-life element and the number-one son is seduced by visions of crack-slinging glory, only the kickboxing prowess and incorruptible heart of the lowly dishwasher stands between ancestral honor and utter ruination in the new world.