Review #821: 'The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift' (2006)

The Fast and Furious franchise somewhat stalled with this third entry, which re-locates to the neon eye-candy of Japan in a desperate bid to avoid the tedium of the rest of the movie. The first sequel at least managed to keep hold of Paul Walker, who while wasn't the most gifted of actors in his tragically short career, he still had that Keanu Reeves-esque, beach-bum charm. Tokyo Drift stars Lucas Black, that rough-looking kid who was extremely impressive in Sling Blade (1996). His thick Southern drawl - rarely heard outside of an episode of The Simpsons - and goofy demeanour may make him a refreshingly different character to the meat-heads normally seen in this series, but he's just too damn convincing as a complete knuckle-head.

After he lands himself in trouble totalling a car and demolishing a housing development in the process, Sean (Black) relocates to Tokyo to avoid a prison sentence, joining up with his military father. With the help of new high school friend Twinkie (Shad Moss, formerly known as Bow Wow), he finds the city's underground racing scene and quickly creates an enemy in yakuza D.K. (Brian Tee). D.K. challenges Sean to a race that involves 'drifting' - driving sideways at high speed around difficult corners. Sean is beaten, but fellow yakuza Han (Sung Kang) says he has character (thank God he told us) and invites him to join his gang to become a drift racer.

It becomes a running (and unintentional) joke throughout the movie just how bad Sean is at everything he does. Han somehow sees a good driver in there, but all he seems to do is write off cars and wreak havoc. The complete charisma-void that is the film's hero is not helped by the film's awful script, and who knew there was so many Japanese men that speak English in an American accent? Nevertheless, it's a step up from 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003), and director Justin Lin infuses the action scenes with a bigger sense of reality, dragging the franchise back from the video game it was becoming. No one really gets hurt, but at least the cars get wrecked. Still, this is extremely dull stuff.


Directed by: Justin Lin
Starring: Lucas Black, Sung Kang, Shad Moss, Nathalie Kelley, Brian Tee
Country: USA/Germany

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie