I enjoyed The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift far more than I had expected.
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Paul Walker wasn´t enough to propel the second film into the stratosphere. At least, not in my opinion. For whatever the reason may be, Walker was not included in the cast list for the third film in the lucrative "Fast and Furious" franchise. To return to my opinion, this didn´t seem like anything that would hinder a third outing of utra colorful and highly tuned imports. Instead of keeping in line with the undercover cop storylines of the first two films, the filmmakers decided to take the story to the lands where the cars came from – Japan. Of course, with its general lack of long straightaways, crowded streets and winding roads, the Japanese style of racing greatly differs from that of North America. Racing no longer has anything to do with long straightaways and tire smoking burnouts; it has to do with the concept of drifting, where speed does not necessarily warrant the winner, but style and attitude reins supreme.
I admit that I find drifting to be rather intriguing. I´m a straight-line kind of guy and my nearly 400 horsepower Camaro doesn´t take to turns too well. I´ve done a few autocross events and routinely find myself falling behind much slower Mazda Miatas and Honda Civics. Autocross has turns and bends throughout the course and very little straightaways. In turn, I suffer on my times and do not do very good. On a racetrack or straight track, I can outrun Corvettes, Mustangs and a few older Vipers. Two entirely different worlds and my big engined, rear wheel drive car doesn´t do very good in the one where turning is required. Drifting is neither of those worlds and a tremendous amount of horsepower to the rear wheels is a good thing. The basic concept is that enough power can allow cars to slide and smoke their way through turns and take bends as close to walls or other cars as you can. Drifting is controlled insanity in the guise of powerslides. It is an entirely different style of street racing and "Tokyo Drift" does for drifting what the first film did for underground street racing.
The third film does not find any stars headlining the credits. Lucas Black is the only true familiar face and is known for his performances in "Jarhead" and "Friday Night Lights." The majority of the rest of the cast are Japanese actors. Of course, there is one great cameo at the end of the film that nicely ties "Tokyo Drift" into the canon of the franchise. In the film, Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) nearly destroys a housing development during a street race of his old American rustbucket muscle car. He is sent to Tokyo to live with his military father and must live by his father´s rules, which includes not driving a car. Soon, Sean finds himself banging heads with some cocky Japanese drifters and is taken under wing by a legendary drifter who promises to teach him the craft in order to bring down a rival´s reputation.
The first two films featured an undercover cop trying to bring down criminals. Here, a good ole American boy needs to bring down the legendary Yakuza. The Yakuza can make the Italian and Russian mobs look tame in comparison. When I discovered that the filmmakers decided to get away from the undercover cop plotlines, I was excited. However, the franchise does not stray too far away by having a teenage boy bringing down the Japanese mob. Many of the same plotlines and storylines from the first two films are again rehashed, but against the Tokyo city life and drifting, the film feels far more original than "2 Fast, 2 Furious," even if it is yet another basic rehash of the first film. This third picture does not contain nearly as many flashy and interesting cars as the first two films. Drifting isn´t necessarily a place for ultra expensive vehicles. In fact, older Toyota Supras and Celicas are preferred cars. However, a vintage Ford Mustang does find itself with a Toyota motor; something that seems very blasphemous.
I liked "Tokyo Drift" far more than I did the second film, but not quite as much as I did the original entry in the series. Lucas Black was just as wooden as Paul Walker was in his performances, though some of the Japanese actors were fairly good. The cars were again the story in the film, but this time the concept of drifting helped elevate their appeal. Drifting and the awkwardness the main character faced while trying to adjust to Japanese society were the two elements that kept my interest. This is another example of a film that only strives to entertain and for the most part, I felt "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" held my interest and entertained me. It´s story won´t win awards and I won´t recommend you start to dissect the plot. However, if you like fast cars and want introduced to an entirely different aspect of street racing and see the tuners in their ´natural environment,´ then "Tokyo Drift" is an experience worht experiencing.
Video:
The first two films in the "Fast and the Furious" franchise looked great in their high definition skins. "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is no exception and looks very good with its VC-1/1080p 2.35:1 image. This is another very bright and colorful film that ranks with the best of them in color reproduction. There are more dark scenes in this film than the first two and thankfully, black levels and shadow detail are best handled by this release. Japanese street racing takes place entirely at night and the majority of time spent in Japan happens at night. Detail is again superb and for the third time – you guessed it; I was wondering if I could see my reflection in the cars´ paintjobs. The "Fast and the Furious" franchise is mostly about the cars and some of the tuners seen in this film are the most impressive custom jobs of the entire series. Only the initial street race of the first film surpassed the parking garage moments of this film in sheer beauty of race machines. I´m torn as to which film is better looking; this or the first film. Regardless, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is about as good as it gets in high definition.
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