Lucas Black (the kid from the "American Gothic" TV series and the "X-Files" movie) has matured into a charismatic young actor with a brooding screen presence. He does a terrific job picking up the franchise torch from Vin Diesel and Paul Walker in this killer sequel, a well crafted guilty pleasure that delivers the Fast and Furious goods.Sexy, colorful, edgy, expertly paced, with a great opening sequence and a knockout ending, "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is formula genre filmmaking at its absolute finest. The movie has a beautiful female lead (Nathalie Kelley), cool sidekicks, wonderfully over the top villains, and a great setting (the filmmakers do a great job utilizing the Tokyo locations).
This movie is a real rush of adrenaline. A wicked guilty pleasure that lives up to its title.
Here Lin is in Tokyo with the stoic, deadpan line reading Lucas Black (as the booted out of the US to avoid Juvenile detention, Shane Boswell...a car nut addicted to driving fast and grinning like a Cheshire cat) who, of course finds the local car culture and its inhabitants by way of a school pal, Twinkie played by the appealing Bow-Wow. And he just as quickly falls in with the "wrong crowd" consisting of Han, a sort of Sensei to Shane (the enigmatic and excellent Sung Kang from "Face" and "Better Luck Tomorrow"), and the villain of the piece, Yamata played with his face crunched and a constant sneer by Sonny Chiba. Then there is the lovely Neela (Nathalie Kelley...a dead ringer for FFI's Jordana Brewster): like Shane and Twinkie a High School (!)student with very, very permissive parents.
Lin directs this piece to within an inch of its life: your eyes and ears are never bored, never without something to feast your eyes upon or pop your fingers to.
Lin never judges his characters, we never feel that he is slumming...he always respects the material he is given to direct and he always puts his personal stamp on everything that he does.
I wish he were given something as meaningful and heartfelt as "Better Luck Tomorrow" to direct but he's young and he has many many movies to make before he is through.
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The cast in this movie was extremely well chosen, and they all acted very well. Sean is a reckless, charming, somewhat troubled teenager, but he doesn't come across as stupid and careless--despite his angst and frequent bungles, he is immediately likable. When a car race with a peer at his school results in two wrecked cars and extensive damage to a local construction site, the only alternative he has to jail is to move to Tokyo and live with a relative (his father, I thought, but maybe his uncle...).In Tokyo, Sean quickly discovers the racing scene. After trashing a race car, he has no choice but to work for Han, the car's owner, as compensation. Han is by far the best character in this movie, to the point that he seems out of place--you just don't expect a character THAT good in this sort of action flick. Han is a whimsical, philosophical and intense character. He completely upstages Sean and almost from the first moment you see him, calmly eating his chips while he watches Sean destroy his expensive race car, you want to see more of him.
Much of the movie's impetus comes from D.K. and Neela. D.K., short for "Drift King," is the top racer in the area and the nephew of a local yakuza boss. He's partners with Han and is obsessed with Neela, a peer of Sean's at school. D.K. dislikes Sean immediately, noting Sean's interest in Neela and tensions between the two of them escalate throughout the movie, leading to the "climax" which is a night race down an extremely windy road out in the middle of nowhere. The races in general are pretty entertaining and are a good length, time-wise.
This was a good flick with a few really excellent qualities. The plot was a little hazy but there was one, and the characters were very well developed. Just the Han character made it worth seeing, for me. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys action movies. It was at last as good as the previous two movies in the series. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift isn't a deep, thought provoking movie, but it doesn't purport to be either. It's just what it was marketed in trailers to be: an action packed fun bit of mind candy filled with fast cars, dozens upon dozens of hot Japanese girls, thumping music, and body flinching car crashes. The basic plot is that a high school driving nut gets in trouble (yet again) after racing with a rich boy. To keep him out of jail, he is sent to his estranged father in Japan. Alas, there he discovers the world of drifting, an even more dangerous style of racing. Unfortunately, he also soon finds himself in trouble with the relative of a high ranking Yakuza.
For me, the only really noticeable mistake in this movie is that way too many people walked away with only a few scratches from what should have been fatal crashes. For example, there is one crash where a car rams into a concrete tube while going at least 80 mph. Yet the two occupants didn't even require a hospital bed! A more minor mistake might have been putting in a little too much plot, especially when some things weren't followed up as well as they could have. In the end, though, the plot is mostly there to serve as some spacer between all the hot cars and awesome races. I should mention one other minor mistake. Vin Diesel's cameo was so completely pointless. The movie already had a good ending, it was just kinda senseless.
The cars in this movie are the real stars. So many hot little numbers, including American muscle cars, hot foreign vehicles, and one pimped out van that you just have to see to believe. The acting is good, for what it is, though Luca Black's twang-filled voice might annoy some folks. Twinkie, another army brat played by Bow Wow, is such a hoot! I know I said the plot was mostly spacer, but I did find the interaction between Sean, Han, and Twinkie to be awesome.
So I suggest you don't think about the logistics of things. Just sit back and enjoy the cars, the some times over-the-top characters, and, for the men (or lesbians) the multitude of Japanese girls who barely wear any clothes. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing this movie. I was pleasantly surprised that they attempted to include at least some true elements of Japanese culture, such as the changing shoes thing in schools.
I do recommend this one been seen in the theater. The music and pulse of the movie are made for big screen, surround sound viewing! I might get this one DVD just to have something fun and rocking to watch when I want some mindless action.
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After buying the original "The Fast and The Furious" I found most of my enjoyment came from making fun of the movie and shaming it. However, I can now say I am a fan of the trilogy (all 3 films are good).Lucas Black is simply The Man and gives another great performance here. Bow Wow does a surprisingly good job as well. Car buffs and street racers will especially like this movie (which I am neither). This is a fast paced and exciting action packed movie that many will enjoy.
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