THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT
ShakaNui
The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift
Turn, turn, turn
Release Date: 2006
Ebert Rating: ***
BY ROGER EBERT / Jun 16, 2006
After Sean wrecks a construction site during a car race, the judge offers him a choice: Juvenile Hall, or go live with his father in Japan. So here he is in Tokyo, wearing his cute school uniform and replacing his shoes with slippers before entering a classroom where he does not read, write or understand one word of Japanese. They say you can learn through total immersion. When he sees the beautiful Neela sitting in the front row, it's clear what he'll be immersed in.
"The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" is the third of the F&F movies; it delivers all the races and crashes you could possibly desire, and a little more. After only one day in school, Sean (Lucas Black) is offered a customized street speedster, and is racing down the ramps of a parking garage against the malevolent D.K. (Brian Tee), who it turns out is Neela's boyfriend.
The racing strategy is called "drifting." It involves sliding sideways while braking and accelerating, and the races involve a lot of hairpin turns. The movie ends with a warning that professional stunt drivers were used, and we shouldn't try this ourselves. Like the stunt in "Jackass" where the guy crawls on a rope over an alligator pit with a dead chicken hanging from his underwear, it is not the sort of thing likely to tempt me.
The movie observes two ancient Hollywood conventions. (1) The actors play below their ages. Although the "students" are all said to be 17, Lucas Black is 24, and his contemporaries in the movie range between 19 and 34. Maybe that's why the girls in the movie take their pom-poms home: They need to remind us how young they are.
They are also rich. After Sean wrecks the red racer that Han (Sung Kang) has loaned him, he has access to a steady supply of expensive customized machines, maybe because Han likes him, although the movie isn't heavy on dialogue. "I have money," Han tells Sean after the first crash. "It's trust I don't have." He lets Sean work off the cost of the car by walking into a bathhouse and trying to collect a debt from a sumo wrestler. Meanwhile, in the tiny but authentic Tokyo house occupied by his father (Brian Goodman), a U.S. military officer, Sean has to listen to a movie speech so familiar it should come on rubber stamps: "This isn't a game. If you're gonna live under my roof you gotta live under my rules. Understood?"
Yeah, sure, dad. Sean is scorned in Tokyo as a gaijin, or foreigner, and that gives him something in common with Neely (Nathalie Kelley), whose Australian mother was a "hostess" in a bar and whose father was presumably Japanese, making her half-gaijin. "Why can't you find a nice Japanese girl like all the other white guys?" Han asks him. Luckily Neely speaks perfect English, as do Han and Twinkie (Bow Wow), another new friend, who can get you Michael Jordans even before Nike puts them on the market.
The racing scenes in the movie are fast, and they are furious, and there's a scene where Sean and D.K. are going to race down a twisting mountain road, and Neely stands between the two cars and starts the race, and we wonder if anyone associated with this film possibly saw "Rebel Without a Cause."
What's interesting is the way the director, Justin Lin, surrounds his gaijin with details of Japanese life, instead of simply using Tokyo as an exotic location. We meet the sumo wrestler, who will be an eye-opener for teenagers self-conscious about their weight. We see pachinko parlors, we see those little "motel rooms" the size of a large dog carrier, and we learn a little about the Yakuza (the Japanese Mafia) because D. K.'s uncle is the Yakuza boss Kamata (Sonny Chiba). One nice touch happens during the race on the mountain road, which the kids are able to follow because of instant streaming video on their cell phones.
Lin, still only 33, made an immediate impression with his 2002 Sundance hit "Better Luck Tomorrow," a satiric and coldly intelligent movie about rich Asian-American kids growing up in Orange County and winning Ivy League scholarships while becoming successful criminals. That movie suggested Lin had the resources to be a great director, but since then he's chosen mainstream commercial projects. Maybe he wants to establish himself before returning to more personal work. His "Annapolis" (2006) was a sometimes incomprehensible series of off-the-shelf situations (why, during the war in Iraq, make a military academy movie about boxing?).
But in "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," he takes an established franchise and makes it surprisingly fresh and intriguing. The movie is not exactly "Shogun" when it comes to the subject of an American in Japan (nor, on the other hand, is it "Lost in Translation"). But it's more observant than we expect, and uses its Japanese locations to make the story about something more than fast cars. Lin is a skillful director, able to keep the story moving, although he needs one piece of advice. It was Chekhov, I believe, who said when you bring a gun onstage in the first act, it has to be fired in the third. Chekhov might also have agreed that when you bring Nathalie Kelley onstage in the first act, by the third act the hero should at least have been able to kiss her.
Cast & Credits
Sean Boswell: Lucas Black
Han: Sung Kang
Twinkie: Bow Wow
D.K.: Brian Tee
Neela: Nathalie Kelley
Uncle Kamata: Sonny Chiba
Earl: Jason Tobin
Clay: Zachery Ty Bryan
Universal presents a film directed by Justin Lin. Written by Alfredo Botello, Chris Morgan and Kario Salem. Running time: 105 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for reckless and illegal behavior involving teens,violence, language and sexual content).
copyright 2005, rogerebert.com
When a crime brings them back to L.A., fugitive ex-con Dom Toretto (Diesel) reignites his feud with agent Brian O'Conner (Walker). But as they are forced to confront a shared enemy, Dom and Brian must give in to an uncertain new trust if they hope to outmanuever him. And from convoy heists to precision tunnel crawls across international lines, two men will find the best way to get revenge: push the limits of what's possible behind the wheel.
Marcob...@aol.com
These are really good movies especially the secon which is a bona and certified shaka classic and one of the all time most fun times i had in the theater with my young in traing for adults...great news at the end of eberts review who also likes these flicks news of the next one with vin and paul walker and michelle rodriguez hubba hubba...shaka sez bring it on
Marc
**************
Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for fuel-efficient used cars.
(http://autos.aol.com/used?ncid=aolaut00050000000007)
Bonestructure
in Red Rock Canyon here in Las Vegas."
Viva Los Vegas? Is that the one where Elvis drives in a road race?
No, not being funny. I enjoyed Elvis movies.
--
Save gas - fart in a jar
Marcob...@aol.com
Viva Los Vegas? Is that the one where Elvis drives in a road race?
No, not being funny. I enjoyed Elvis movies.
Marc
ShakaNui
Bonestructure
as john wayne for a part of my childhood"
My favorite is one of his early movies, FOLLOW THAT DREAM. The family's
car runs out of gas and a state official pressures them to move on, pop
decides to just homestead there by the beach and a whole community
starts to form on this beach road. It's just a silly little movie but it
also stars Arthur O'Connel and I find it hilarious. Other favorites are
BLUE HAWAII, CLAMBAKE, CHANGE OF HABIT and PARADISE HAWAIIAN STYLE
MauriceFerguson
Vegas (not so good).
Cham