The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

Fast and the Furious Rebrands

Sean and Han

Tokyo Drift is arguably one of the weakest instalments in the Fast/Furious Franchise.  However, some advantages come along with it's rebranding of the series.  

For one thing this movie had almost 3 times the budget of the original, which makes for better special effects.  The best of which would be the impressive mountain race at the end with the twists and turns and cameras falling over the edge.  It is pretty exhilarating.  

Sung Kang as Jedi Han

Secondly you're introduced to another series regular.  If I had it my way every movie would have a laid back pilot named Han.  Sung Kang is one of the film's better actors and becomes a part of the group in later films to help tie this movie to the rest of the franchise.  Han is calm and collected, funny and easily the best part of this threequel.  

Bow Wow as lame American friend

Thirdly you get to watch Lil' Bow Wow get his ass kicked.  Sorry, sorry, it's Bow Wow by this point, although I failed to witness a growth spurt.  His character is alright I guess.  A nerdy sidekick for Lucas Black to defend at school and speak english with.

Let's talk about Lucas Black for a minute.  Who the hell chose this guy?  Was it because the words "Dukes of Hazzard" was mentioned by Tyrese in the previous film?  So the obvious choice was a good ole boy?  He's not even an undercover cop!  That would have made this a little more interesting I think.

Beyond that you get the same old same old, but in Japan (seeing some of the cultural differences is interesting at least).  Pretty people, car chases, crime drama, vroom vroom.  It has its moments, but it hardly holds up to Vin and his crew taking down a Mack truck, or Paul and Tyrese fooling the Feds as well as a mobster and jumping a muscle car onto a yacht.  This movie is the flat tire of the franchise.

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

More than just a clever title: but not much more. 

It's clear why people dislike this sequel, all the beloved characters are gone and the cars look ridiculous.  But it's not without its charm.  Same formula applies; cool cars, beautiful people, great action, vroom-vroom.

This movie's new beautiful people are played by Tyrese Gibson and Eva Mendes. 

VD lovers (Vin Diesel) often feel Tyrese is a poor substitute.  But he's actually a lot more fun.  His character Roman, or Roam (which is a sweet nickname) is unpredictable, tough, and surprisingly funny and definitely brings more humour to the future instalments of the franchise. 

As for the rest of the movie, Eva is gorgeous but kind of boring, Ludacris is fun and Cole Hauser does a decent job as the villain, aside from pretending he's brunette.

Fun car chases, couple clever con jobs and of course the dreamy eyes of Paul Walker seem to pop so much more in Miami.  It's much more a buddy movie than a cat-and-mouse dynamic...it's slightly less dramatic than the original, but better than Tokyo Drift. 

The Fast and The Furious (2001)

Back to Basics

With the 7th film coming out this weekend, I figured I had the day off to do what many are doing and re-watching the series from the beginning.  All 6, starting 15 years ago.

The first movie has a bit of heart, and unlike the more recent in the series, it's about driving. 

The story is well set up, life as a mechanic/street racer is exciting and dangerous.  A life of crime and a rough relationship with the local motorcycle...Triad?... is that racist? Anyway, his name is Johnny Tran. 

The shakey dialogue and quasi-acting is rescued by the racing, the action is high-quality, and the way Paul Walker reveals he's a cop is pretty funny/clever ad well. 

All-in-all, it's a decent flick, what action movie doesn't suffer from some bad dialogue now and then.  Coulda been worse. 

The most amusing part is when they push their cars into high-gear with their NOS tanks, it's shot like they're entering "warp-speed" the colours and worm-hole-like zoom effects are pretty entertaining/hilarious.  Can't remember most the rest of the movies, and have a tough time telling the last four apart.  Time to race through them.