I did it! I got through the two Fast and Furious movies I was dreading the most – the two that I was told I can avoid. I knew I couldn’t though. That’s now how I watch. If I watch – I watch hard. Today’s FNE Movie Month feature is 2006’s The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, already my fourth film this year to have a colon in the title.
Let me be very clear about this. This is not a good movie. Really, why is this even considered a “Fast and Furious” movie? The entire story has nothing to do with anything or anybody we’ve seen before. I know the big final cameo (which must’ve been cool for fans at the time to see) ties things together and future movies build this movie into the storyline – but at the time (minus the cameo) this was a 100% original movie that just has different actors/characters in it.
Seriously, how can you take franchise (because part three makes it a franchise) about fast cars and just replace the actors with other actors – replace the characters – and think that nobody will notice???
It’s not even an original concept!
Okay, so I admit this was not a good movie. There wasn’t good acting. I didn’t like the cars or the racing as much. The story was as vanilla as can be. And yet still – I didn’t hate it. I would say the direction of the movie was better than it’s predecessor – which is probably why director Justin Lin stayed on as director of the franchise for parts 4, 5, and 6.
Playing the roll of Paul Walker in this one is Lucas Black (but imagine if it was Lewis Black?). I wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t playing the same character before I watched the movie. Early one I realized he wasn’t. Oh he must be an undercover cop pretending to he a high school kid. Nope he was just a high school kid.
And old ass high school kid.
His character ends up causing a lot of property damage racing Tim Taylor’s oldest son – not for pink slips – but for the heart of what I can presume was the school whore? Now instead of going to jail for the damage – and it looks like instead of paying for any of it in any way – he just got to go study abroad in Japan and live with his dad.
Of course his first day in a Tokyo High school he meets Bow Wow (no longer Lil) who of course is into driving and racing. So their best friends, and they go to the hottest spot in town – a parking garage.
Where all the cool kids hang out.
Instead of racing on the streets, these folks race in the garage using the driving technique of drifting – where you skid a lot.
The main character ends up racing the king shit of the garage, nephew to a mobster, and the Johnny Lawrence of this movie. Of course he’s from America where you drive straight and fast. So he can’t figure out how to drift right away. Oh, did I mention he got to borrow a car from Han, who is part of the bad guy’s crew? Yeah and Han doesn’t seem to give a shit about the fact that the main character (I keep forgetting his name is Sean) beats the crap out of his car.
Oh I get it – Han is the undercover cop right? He’s taking on the Yakuza from the inside, right?
Nope. Unless his story changes in the future movies, he’s no undercover cop. NOBODY is an undercover cop.
I really was waiting for an undercover cop.
Races happen, a girl is in the middle, money is stolen – and then paid back – there’s a death – and then there’s a race for all the marbles.
Yup that sums this up. And guess who wins? You’re right!
A few things of note:
- The scene where the main girl talks about how she feels while she’s driving/drifting and there are all these cars in sync like their almost dancing. Yeah that’s dumb.
- And do they have to drift while they chase either other too? Can there be such a thing as too much drifting?
- Bow Wow was not a bad actor at all. Certainly far from the worst in this series.
- If we were to rank these moves from 1-7, this would not be the worst of them.
But I did it. Now I can get back to Vin Deisel (seriously, am I actually saying this) and get ready for the bigger, crazier, more action-y movies. Cuz I like action and I like big stunts, but I don’t really give two craps about skidding cars sliding around.
Still not a car jumping onto a boat….
11 down. 19 to go.
