The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Posted by Brian C. Gibson (brian@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 25, 2006

Release Date: September 26, 2006

Any great movie has to eventually become a trilogy, or even have a trilogy of prequels. Well, sometimes not so great movies become trilogies too. First came The Fast and the Furious, then came 2Fast 2Furious and then came The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. At least the studio didn’t try another clever alpha-numeric sequel title like 3Fast 3Furious or maybe even I Know What You Did the Furious Before Fast. When Shawn Boswell (Lucas Black) keeps landing himself into trouble with the law, and forcing his mother to move from new town to new town, his mother forces him to move in with his father for his own good. The only catch, Shawn’s father lives in Tokyo. Shawn can’t find a single reason to like Tokyo until he meets Twinkie (Bow Wow) who introduces him to the Tokyo racing underground. Shawn’s love for cars is what landed him in trouble in the first place. In Tokyo Shawn finds trouble when he starts talking to a girl from his high school, Neela (Nathalie Kelley). When Shawn finds out that Neela is taken by the Drift King, he not only challenges him for the girl but also for respect behind the wheel.

Drift King shows Shawn how to drift, the hard way. Han, one of Drift King’s friends, decides to take the Shawn under his wing and give him work to pay for the car that he destroyed during the first race. Shawn becomes deeply tangled in the Tokyo underworld and searches for a way to connect to Neela. Soon Shawn begins to annoy the Drift King and tempers flare as things start to become Fast and Furious.The first 15 minutes of the movie were not encouraging whatsoever. After watching some ultra-macho “I’m more of a man because my car’s engine is bigger than yours…let’s go watch sports and pee on stuff” action between Lucas Black and Zachery Ty Bryan, the film looked like a surefire bust. I expected to see some engine revving nonsense and over dramatic drag races, but Tokyo Drift had a trick up its sleeve. The addition of this kind of racing made for a much more dramatic experience. Seeing these expensive supercars sliding sideways through a parking garage past hot Asian girls was well, exciting.

One of the most enjoyable parts of the movie, if I hadn’t mentioned this already, was the girls. Particularly actress Nathalie Kelley, who makes her debut in this film, is abso-fricken-lutely gorgeous. I hope to see Nathalie in more and more movies to come. Lucas Black who played a dumb Texan twice for his roles in Friday Night Lights and Jarhead, may be becoming a legitimate star but don’t be like most people and automatically associate fame with being a good actor. Lucas has a lot of work ahead of him, especially if he wants to shed the typecast that he is quickly developing. Bow “Don’t call me ‘lil” Wow was just…unnecessary. Tokyo Drift was full of fun and energy that wasn’t to be expected from this last ditch effort to pimp this franchise. The plot for Tokyo Drift was certainly better than the previous film from this trilogy, but still falls short as being a legitimate movie versus being just a glorified import tuner car movie. The focus of the filmmakers was clear, and that was show off the cars and force action wherever possible.

As for the film on DVD, I would put it on your shopping list. Not quite a “must own”, but definitely a “nice to have”. The picture quality is yet again another Universal Studious pristine release. The gap between HD DVD and 480P is starting to lessen more and more with each release. The sound field is stunning but only presents one disappointment. Due to the other previous releases from this franchise, I assumed that Tokyo Drift would have been in DTS. Nonetheless, the sound was great and so was the picture quality.

The special features were loaded with some pretty cool stuff. Explaining everything from how the stunt driving was done to the customization of over 200 cars, these are special features that are actually fun to watch. The deleted scenes featured on the DVD are exactly where they belong, far away from the feature. Bottomline,  buy Tokyo Drift if you have bought any of the original films or have an avid appreciation for cool cars and action films.

The Upside: High octane fun that any fan or fast cars, hot girls and an awesome soundtrack can appreciate.

The Downside: While Tokyo Drift may be better than 2Fast 2Furious, it still comes short as the second best of three very average guilty pleasure movies.

On the Side: Even though over 100 cars were destroyed/wrecked during the filming of this movie, all of the drifting in the movie was performed by professional drivers, not created by CGI. As reported in a recent Sport Compact Car, Rhys Millen, his father, and a handful of other famous rally and drift racers consistently performed amazing drift sequences for the movie.

Film Grade: C-

DVD Grade: B

Read more articles by Brian C. Gibson