Review: The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Revhead and serial screw-up Sean (Lucas Black) gets into one scrape too many with the law with his illegal racing. Instead of being thrown in the slammer, his mother organises to have him shipped off to live with his estranged dad (Brian Goodman) in Japan. Where he ends up getting into trouble with the local ‘drift’ racers there, of course. Nathalie Kelley plays the non-Japanese main squeeze of chief antagonist ‘D.K.’ (Brian Tee). D.K. is the upstart nephew of a mobster (played by the one and only Sonny Chiba). Bow Wow plays a displaced American, who will become Sean’s token African-American best friend. Sung Kang plays Han, Sean’s mentor in the phenomenon of ‘drift’ racing. Zachery Ty Bryan appears early as the dipshit Sean races against in the opening scene.

 

I never got around to seeing this 2006 film from director Justin Lin (“Annapolis”, “Fast & Furious” entries 5, 6, and 7) and screenwriter Chris Morgan (“Fast & Furious” entries 5, 6, and 7), when it came out because I didn’t want to. Since I’ve watched every other film in the series, though, I figured I’d be a completist and catch up with the film now. And now that I have? Yeah, I wasn’t missing much, the series really didn’t start to pick up until the next film, and even then it was only slightly. This one still has the series playing more like a low-rent “Point Break” instead of the silly-fun “Ocean’s Eleven” on wheels that the series would become. The only differences here are no Paul Walker and it’s set in Japan. However, with several non-Asian actors plus American-born Sung Kang, it’s hardly a foreign film. This is as Japanese as apple pie.

 

All grown-up (he looks about 30!) and tough looking, Lucas Black is our lead actor here, he previously gave one of the all-time best child performances in Billy Bob Thornton’s stunning directorial debut “Sling Blade”. Refusing to modify his countrified twang, he’s got leading man looks and gives an OK performance, but he’s grown up to have the charisma of a supporting player, I’m afraid. Co-star Sung Kang is far more interesting, even if his character appears to be completely different from the rest of his appearances in the series. Peruvian-Australian actress Nathalie Kelley, meanwhile completely fails at maintaining an American accent that her Japanese-born, Australian-raised character shouldn’t have at all (Did they really need to give Black the second least-Japanese looking girl in the film for a love interest?). She’s unquestionably smoking hot, but is almost Devon Aoki-level as an actress (You may remember Aoki’s brief turn in the pathetic “2 Fast 2 Furious” where she resembled a wax figure slowly melting in front of us all). Combined with the rather stoic (to be charitable) Black, her smoking hot looks aren’t enough to thaw the ice of their anti-chemistry. I don’t know if it’s because of his redneck accent, but I’m not quite sure if Black needed a token African-American best friend in a film set in Japan. Still, hippity hopper Bow Wow Woof Woof isn’t bad in the part. The great Sonny Chiba is predictably cast and underused. However, as much as this isn’t his best performance, it’s certainly the film’s best performance. Look out for “Home Improvement” co-star Zachery Bryan as the ridiculous bully in the opening car chase. His eyes sure do look awfully red and glassy here. Just sayin’.

 

As for the film itself, like I said the series got more interesting later on, and this one peaks in the opening scene I’m afraid. The opening race is supremely dumb, but entertaining. Sadly, the rest of the film plays like an Asian teen movie with cars. Part of the problem is the concept of drifting, as it pertains to cinematic enjoyment. Drifting to me is as necessary as grunting in tennis. No matter what anyone tells you, one’s a meaningless flourish, the other is an unnecessary habit that hasn’t been curbed. There’s a reason why there aren’t a whole lot of drifting scenes in movies today, and that’s because it’s a one-dimensional flourish that ran out of fashion somewhere around…oh, the release of this film maybe? I’m slightly exaggerating, I’m sure people still do it in real life, but I still had a mullet hairstyle post millennium, so there’s always gonna be someone who won’t let it die. It isn’t all about drifting, but none of the car race scenes manage to top the opener. The final chase in particular is too jittery and cut-up to really get into. Someone really needs to explain to me how this form of editing and filmmaking is better than the standard techniques of years gone by. Speaking of ineffectual: Brian Goodman as Black’s estranged dad. He’s ridiculously ineffectual to the point where he ends up just letting the kid do what he’s gotta do, after spending the bulk of the film with a hard-arse parenting attitude. After a certain point he’s like, ‘Well, OK…here’s my car’.

 

I was probably right in avoiding this one all these years. It’s not bad, just very, very ‘meh’. It’s far too in-keeping with the first two films, whereas the series really only started to take off once it became more of an over-the-top spectacle and ensemble piece (Despite being written and directed by the guys who would make the subsequent films). Pretty mediocre.

 

Rating: C