After a bit of hell-raising gone wrong, teen street racer Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) is saved from prison when his mom sends him to live with his dad in Japan.
Sean quickly falls into the local underground 'drifting' scene, in which racers 'drift' around corners. After Sean destroys his car, mature racer Han (Sung Kang) takes him under his wing to repay his debt. He also teaches him how to drift...
Thank the drifting gods for this movie. Halfway through 2 Fast 2 Furious I was considering pulling the plug on this review series.
Right from the opening scene, Tokyo Drift feels alive and specific in a way that the previous movies never did.
Stylistically the previous movies felt like they were forcing in constant flash and stylistic flourishes that never feel functional. With the arrival of Justin Lin, the franchise finally feels like it is coming of age.
This movie also marks the arrival of longtime scribe Chris Morgan and composer Brian Tyler, who have - with some exceptions - been the stable creative force in the series to this day.
The story is a fairly typical riff on the coming of age template: a young outcast falls under the wing of an older mentor and learns how to mature and tame his self-destructive instincts through the mastery of a new skill. It may not be original but the story is functional, and Lin shoots it with a grasp on pathos, action and humour that was missing in the preceding movies.
What is interesting about this movie is that my feelings about it are essentially the inverse of how I felt towards Parts 1 and 2: the story is well-directed and creates an interesting world, but the main character is a blank.
Lucas Black is miscast. He is a fine actor, but he does not have the same easy charm of the series' previous leads. It really made me appreciate Paul Walker’s work as Brian - he may be a bit stiff, but Walker could play the cockiness while also being charming. There is an empathy and integrity to Walker that made Brian believable as the earnest lead of an action movie. Nothing groundbreaking, but he fit the role. Black just disappears. Hopefully, he gets some more character development in Fast 9.
While it is detriment in terms of the films’ protagonist, the movie is impeccably cast in the supporting players: Bow Wow is charming as Black’s friend Twinkie, Sung Kang is charisma personified as series favourite Han, and Brian Tee is absolutely magnetic as the antagonist Takashi. I know Tee’s name but I do not think I have seen him in anything. He is charismatic, cool and very intimidating - the movie gets a jolt of electricity every time he is onscreen.
Apparently Lucas Black and Bow Wow are appearing in Fast 9 - here is hoping Teecan join the team as well.
We also get an appearance from action icon Sonny Chiba as Takashi’s uncle, a local Yakuza who becomes a major obstacle as the movie heads into the home stretch.
The vehicular action is very well-staged. The previous movies went overboard with the virtual camera moves and hyperactive editing. Here, the action is shot with clarity and a sense of geography. The sound design also adds to the tension, particularly in the sequences when are hero is trying to learn how to drift around corners properly. For the first time in the series, there is a genuine sense of peril to the action.
The franchise has now gone international, so cars speeding through various locales is now familiar. What makes Tokyo Drift stand out is that the filmmakers do not turn the Japanese locale into an exotic backdrop. It feels specific and lived-in - there no montages of unique places or obvious fish-out-of-water jokes. We do not even get that many flashy establishing shots of impressive locations - it makes the scene-setting feel immersive rather than a backdrop for cool car stunts.
Of the films I have seen this far, Tokyo Drift is the one I want to re-watch. Despite some issues, this movie is the most dramatically satisfying. I can see why the fanbase gravitate towards this one. This movie was the NOS boost I needed heading into the next batch of entries - it was actually exciting to see Vin Diesel pop up at the end.
Bring on Fast & Furious…
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