The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

Every major film franchise has its fair share of “black sheep”. Not every movie in a series is going to be a major win. This could happen for any number of reasons. Maybe a new director was hired and wanted to use a different vision. Maybe the filmmakers got complacent and stopped trying. Maybe the studio executives stuck their noses in places they didn’t belong. People often point to The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift as the “black sheep” of the whole franchise. While it’s far from the best, I think it gets hate on a bit too much. I quite enjoy this movie and don’t see it as one you just have to “get through” when watching through the series.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift follows high school student Sean Bowell (Lucas Black) as he gets emersed in the world of Tokyo’s drift racing scene. After numerous arrests, Sean is forced to move to Tokyo, so as not to go to prison. He lives with his dad who has strict rules in order to ensure Sean stays out of trouble, especially when it comes to cars. Despite this, Sean gets wrapped into the underground drift racing scene, while simultaneously trying to fend off members of the Yakuza. Along the way, he befriends Twinkie (Bow Wow), a fellow student at his new high school, and Han (Sung Kang), who eventually becomes a mentor to Sean by teaching him how to drift.

This film stands out as having no other characters from the two previous films, save for one cameo at the end. This is why people look at it as an outlier of the series. To be fair, it is an outlier in a literal sense. None of the characters have any connection to the previous movies, at least not yet. It kind of seems like the the filmmakers wanted to start creating standalone racing movies under the Fat & Furious brand. It’s very possible this strategy could’ve worked for a little bit. However, at some point, they made the choice to tie this movie into the overall storyline of the whole franchise. In the long run, this was the right call. I feel like it’s way easier to make a long-lasting franchise if all the movies are connected in some way. If they had made a series of standalone racing movies, I don’t think the franchise would’ve been as popular. There wouldn’t be anything holding them together, and they would’ve gotten repetitive and old. Of course, many might say that’s what happened with the series anyway.

As the title would suggest, the movie focuses a great deal on the drift racing world of Japan. New director Justin Lin wanted to ensure the driving sequences looked and felt as real as they could. That is why all of the racing you see in the movie is done by actual stunt drivers. This makes the movie way better than most people might say. I’m sure there are easy ways to use camera movement and editing to simulate drift racing. However, that would’ve made the movie even worse. The drift racing is a major highlight that’s worth watching on its own. Using camera work and special effects to cheap out on the racing would make the movie the worst in the series.

Even though the racing makes the movie better than most people think, the same can’t be said about the story. The plot is a pretty standard one where the protagonist is dropped off in a strange land and gets mixed up in the problems in the area, eventually coming out on top as the hero. Of course, many anime plots are like this, so it’s fitting this would all take place in Japan. Regardless, you won’t find any nuance with the plot. Sean doesn’t help as a character either. Honestly, he gets on my nerves a bit. Het gets sent to live with his dad in Tokyo after getting in trouble with the law so many times. However, he doesn’t even go one day without breaking his dad’s rules and getting wrapped up with the Yakuza. It almost seems like he’s looking for ways to get people mad and get himself in trouble. It’s hard to root for him in this movie. It doesn’t help that he has the same dumb look on his face for the entire movie.

Despite Sean being a dud, the characters of Han and Twinkie even things out a bit. Twinkie goes around the school selling different electronics and other consumer items. He’s a very likeable character who provides a lot of comic relief. Also, he is the one to introduce Sean to drift racing. It’s during this introduction to drift racing that Sean meets Han. He lets Sean use his own car during Sean’s first race. Subsequently, he makes Sean work for him after his car is wrecked. It’s through this business relationship where we see Han become Sean’s mentor. If neither of these characters existed as they do in the movie, the whole thing wouldn’t be worth watching at all. They provide a lot more depth and levity than you might expect from a movie like this. Fun Fact: the character of Han actually gets introduced in a completely unrelated film called Better Luck Tomorrow, directed by Justin Lin.

It gets established after the fact that the story takes place between two films later on in the series. Given that those movies were released, and presumably take place, in the 2010’s, it’s funny to see this movie with its dated technology, having been released in 2006. During the climatic street race at the end, everyone watches what’s happening on their flip phones. Somehow, everything is being recorded using flip phones, then being broadcast on everyone else’s flip phones. Even if you were watching this movie when it was released, I feel like this was a bit of a stretch in terms of realism. I know realism isn’t something associated with this series, but it’s worth mentioning still.

Aside from any other issues I’ve mentioned, I think people look down on this movie simply because it feels so run-of-the-mill. Everything that happens is very predictable. Sean gets in trouble in an unfamiliar place. Sean meets a girl, and they fall for each other. Sean ultimately becomes the hero and best driver around. In terms of the plot, there’s nothing that really stands out from any other zero-to-hero movie. It’s possible this movie could stand out more if Sean were a more compelling character. Also, it’s hard to ignore the fact that Sean is supposed to be in high school and Lucas Black was 24 at the time of release.

All in al, I still feel like this movie gets more grief than it actually deserves. Aside from all of its flaws, it’s still a fun movie to watch. The drift racing scenes alone are worth checking out. Also, the music brings a lot of life to everything. It’s all very catchy and the soundtrack features a number of Japanese groups. It’s easy to enjoy this movie even if you’re unfamiliar with the overall franchise. Since it stands alone from everything else, you can watch it without needing any prior knowledge of past events, similar to the first movie. The cameo at the end might not make sense, but that’s just one small part of everything. I’m not going to say that it’s one of my favorite in the franchise, because it isn’t. I will say that this movie gets a bit more hate than it deserves. It’s far from the best, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad.