The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift

tokyo_driftrating-2.0A movie so exciting that, the next day, I had a hard time remembering I watched it...

While drastically less bad and stupid than I initially expected, the movie is a void of good writing or acting, though it was nice to see such a broad array of Asian actors in one place. Sadly, it had to be for this. Most of the cast of Better Luck Tomorrow seemed to appear, in one capacity or another, and the movie featured cameos by actual Japanese actors, including Sonny Chiba. Playing Han, Sung Kang was probably the highlight of the film, his blasse charisma being the touch that the movie needed to offset the flat, bland redneck lead, Lucas Black, and the charicature that is (Lil') Bow Wow's Twinkie. You heard me right...

For what it is, Tokyo Drift features Black's troubled young street-racing miscreant sent to live in Japan with his military father after one too many huge debacles in the States. Once in Tokyo, he immediately does what he isn't supposed to and, after falling in with drifting street racers, finds himself indebted to Han. In paying off the debt, Black get buried in the world of Yakuza crime and competes with a Japanese rival for a woman's affections.

Yeah, pretty much all the earmarks of a disaster.

And, despite its string of cliches and the death of the mentor figure that comes almost as second nature, the film doesn't over-do its motions and it's actually somewhat understated in comparison to the over-the-top spectacle it easily could be. (I get the feeling that this sequel didn't warrant that kind of budget.)

Now that I've written my review, my brain will forget the movie entirely, though I imagine I won't be the only one.

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