Force Fed Films: The Fast & the Furious Tokyo Drift (2006)

Today Puneet picked out The Fast and The Furious Tokyo Drift for me to watch. The main reason he choose this one out instead of the first two is because I've seen them, but never any of the others. After I commented that the trailer for Fast Five looked cool, he insisted that I catch up on the series, and Tokyo Drift was next in line. I remember enjoying the first two mainly for the high paced over the top racing and all the awesome cars. With that in mind, I should probably enjoy this one too, although when I heard that Bow Wow was in it I kinda shuddered. Hit the jump to see if I thought it was a car crash or a winner.


The story for this film seems to have nothing to do with the previous films in the series. We start off with some random teen going into highschool, and he quickly gets into trouble and his mother sends him away to live with his father in Tokyo, Japan. This teen is Sean Boswell, played by Lucas Black, and he just can't keep away from cars and trouble, and he gets himself in trouble with possible Yakuza connected street racers shockingly fast. The story then proceeds to just become about getting the girl away from the "bad guy" and finding any excuse to show the pretty cars race around Tokyo.

Sean Boswell behind the wheel in Tokyo. If only he could act as well as he drives

So with a story so bad, it's hard to imagine the acting will be any better. Remember I said Bow Wow was in this movie, and guess what? I actually thought he did an alright job! Similarly I liked the work of Brain Tee as the bad guy "DK" and Sung Kang as Sean's mentor in drifting Han. They did they're best with what the lousy script gave them at least. Where I thought it fell flat though is probably where it counts the most though, and that's with Lucas Black as Sean and the lead female played by Nathalie Kelley. Now to be honest, I think a lot of the problems come from the script, and not so much the actors, that is except for Lucas Black. I just couldn't get into his character as a real person and that sort of killed any story for me.

Now you're probably thinking by this point that I hated this movie. And you know what? You'd be totally wrong. Surprise! Shock! Cue "Wilhelm scream". So what saved the movie and let me completely ignore all that bad stuff? The racing! I really enjoyed all the cars and racing throughout this movie, just like I enjoyed it in the previous two. When it comes to these movies, I seem to be able to just zone out and go along for the ride. All the better for me, because it's always better to be able to enjoy a movie than not, in my opinion.

The racing is filled with action and tons of fun IMO

The effects on the driving and cars was occasionally noticeable, but for the most part I thought the effect was pulled off pretty well. I'm referring of course to incidents when the cars are just cg or the effect of making it look like the actor is racing the cars for real. The camera work/trick used to make it look like the actors are in the drifting cars or causing them to drift I thought worked really well though.

Lots of shiny cars and high speed stunts

In the end I can easily say I had fun. I had to pretend I didn't hear some of the garbage falling out of their mouths sometimes, and I really wished they didn't try to put the romance into the movie, because that simply wasn't working. The movie has a bit of trouble with pacing, and knowing how much time takes place between events, but if you can get past that and can just enjoy the cars and the girls on screen, you'll probably have a blast with Tokyo Drift.