Sucker Free City | |
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Directed by | Spike Lee |
Written by | Alex Tse |
Produced by | Preston Holmes |
Starring | Ben Crowley Ken Leung Anthony Mackie |
Cinematography | César Charlone |
Edited by | Barry Alexander Brown |
Music by | Terence Blanchard |
Distributed by | Showtime Network |
Release date | September 16, 2004 |
Running time | 114 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Sucker Free City is a 2004 crime drama television film directed by Spike Lee. [1] The film examines white, black, and Chinese characters in San Francisco and the conflicts they encounter with each other. The film was intended to be the pilot for a Showtime television series, but Showtime declined to pick up the series. The film was first screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and was subsequently broadcast on television on the Showtime Network.
The title of the film derives from "Sucka Free", a slang term in reference to the city often used by natives of Hunters Point and The Fillmore. The term was popularized by the rappers San Quinn, JT the Bigga Figga (who has a cameo in the film) and most notably the song "Sucka Free" from Rappin' 4-Tay's 1994 album Don't Fight the Feelin' .
The film follows three young men as they are drawn into lives of crime. Nick (Crowley) uses his entry-level corporate job to commit credit card fraud and deals drugs on the side. K-Luv (Mackie) is a member of the "V-Dubs" ("Visitacion Valley Mafia"), an African-American street gang. Lincoln (Leung) is a rising figure in the Chinese mafia.
Gentrification forces Nick's family to move out of their home in the Mission District into Hunter's Point, where they are harassed by the V-Dubs. K-Luv's side business of selling bootleg compact discs leads him to enlist Nick's help to bootleg CDs and to negotiate a truce with Lincoln. Lincoln conducts an affair with his boss's daughter Angela (Carpio), a Stanford student engaged to medical student classmate Edwin (Chung).
Actor | Role |
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Ben Crowley | Nick Wade |
Anthony Mackie | K-Luv (Keith) |
Ken Leung | Lincoln Ma |
Darris Love | Sleepy |
Laura Allen | Samantha Wade |
T.V. Carpio | Angela Tsing |
Kathy Baker | Cleo Wade |
James Hong | Kwok |
Lamont Bentley | Ahmir |
Ewan Chung | Edwin Leong |
Omari Hardwick | Dante Ponce |
Marguerite Moreau | Jessica Epstein |
Judy Pace | Mama June |
Emilio Rivera | Detective Zepada |
John Savage | Anderson Wade |
Eddie Shin | Michael |
Malieek Straughter | Leon |
Jim Brown | Don Strickland |
George Cheung | Mr. Tsing |
Chi Moui Lo | Tuk |
Milo Stokes | Lil' O |
J.T. The Bigga Figga | Killa Ski |
The Summer of Love was a major social phenomenon that occurred in San Francisco during the summer of 1967. As many as 100,000 people, mostly young people, hippies, beatniks, and 1960s counterculture figures, converged in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district and Golden Gate Park. More broadly, the Summer of Love encompassed hippie culture, spiritual awakening, hallucinogenic drugs, anti-war sentiment, and free love throughout the West Coast of the United States, and as far away as New York City. An episode of the PBS documentary series American Experience referred to the Summer of Love as "the largest migration of young people in the history of America".
Sucker may refer to:
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, financial, and cultural center in Northern California. With a population of 808,437 residents as of 2022, San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of California. The city covers a land area of 46.9 square miles at the end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second-most densely populated large U.S. city after New York City and the fifth-most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four New York City boroughs. Among the 92 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco is ranked first by per capita income and sixth by aggregate income as of 2022.
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Alex Tse is an American screenwriter and television show creator active since 2004. He was one of the creators and executive producers of the 2019 TV series Wu-Tang: An American Saga. Prior to that, Tse wrote the 2004 gangster film Sucker Free City, co-wrote the 2009 superhero film Watchmen, and wrote the 2018 film Superfly.
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