The Good

A solid third act to the cultural phenomenon of the first film.

The Bad

A solid third act to the cultural phenomenon of the first film.

Lucas Black stars as Sean Boswell in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. After getting in some trouble in the U.S., Boswell is sent to live with his father in Tokyo. While there he befriends Twinkie (Bow Wow) and that brings him into the circle of the Drift King (DK; played by Brian Tee). The Drift King has problems with Sean because he's hitting on his girlfriend Neela (Nathalie Kelley). DK's partner Han (Sung Kang), gives Boswell a car to use in a race, and after wrecking it, employs Boswell to work for him. Still trying to hookup with Neela, things eventually boil over when DK's Uncle accuses Han of stealing from him. Eventually, Boswell has to save the day and race the Drift King through a mountainous region of Tokyo.

Okay, I could go into how some of the situations in the film are underdeveloped (to say the least), but I really liked the freshness that director Justin Lin has brought to the film. Maybe it's because he's a contemporary of mine, maybe because I'd love to be in his position, or maybe because he's from Orange County like myself. Whatever the case, he has done very credible work with The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Features

Deleted Scenes

They have put a lot of these on here and they have titles like "Cabbie Wants Yen," "Yak's Girls" and "Golf Drifting." Aside from these being interesting, but probably cut because Lin was under time constraints, I was impressed with the quality of these things. They look like they have been treated with the same care as the film itself. If you are a fan of this movie you would be very wise to check these deleted scenes out.

Drift School

Lucas Black and Brian Tee are on display here as they talk about learning to drift, and that once you learn something like this you become addicted to it. Justin Lin talks about how he wanted the actors to try everything, so that they would get the feel of what it was like even if their stunt drivers were the ones doing it.

Cast Cam

The Big Breakdown: Han's Last Ride

Justin Lin describes this car race as being the most pivotal in the film, even though it isn't the last one. He goes on to say that at this point in the movie, the audience is so invested in the characters that the final result should be really shocking. Apparently, it's very tough getting permits to shoot movies in Tokyo so they had to recreate a portion of Los Angeles for this chase sequence.

Tricked Out to Drift

Real Drift King

Keiichi "Real Drift King" Tsuchiya is on hand to talk about the art of drifting. This gentlemen won a major drift championship in 1984 in which he "drifted" in every corner of the race. It seems that this gentlemen started it all, and what most intrigued me was seeing Tsuchiya behind the scenes on the set. His ability to control the car he is driving, especially under the constraints of science project filmmaking, was incredible. The amount of concentration needed to make an automobile do what he gets it to do is nothing short of amazing.

Don Omar Conteo Music Video

The Japanese Way

A glimpse into what it's like shooting in a place like Tokyo is what's provided here. Justin Lin talks about coming here to do research while writing the screenplay, finding locales, and soaking in the culture. We also get to see the cast as they talk about coming to Tokyo from America. We are even treated to tidbits like the women in Tokyo being big fans of Victorian Fashion.

Audio Commentary with Justin Lin

Lin begins this commentary by declaring that the Universal log, which graces all their movies, is his favorite. After this he breaks down, in his casually simplistic way, the making of this film. He discusses trusting your instincts, how Lucas Black had no problems doing anything that he was asked to do, stealing shots in Tokyo, the challenges of shooting there, using elevator doors as scene reveals and just about everything else. Also, check this out gearheads, this guy knows his cars.

Video

Anamorphic Widescreen - 2.35:1. This is a movie that I would like to see in HD or Blu-ray (and from what I understand it is already in one of those formats). This movie was so colorful and big, but I liked that Justin Lin never allowed it to get lost within the imagery of the cars. I think that sometimes directors have a tendency to do that, but I felt that there was an honest effort to make this film equal parts action and human drama, even if the action portions won out.

Audio

English, Spanish, French Dolby Digital 5.1 - Subtitled in English, Spanish and French. While I found some of the music to be a tad unnerving, overall I really think the audio contributes greatly to this film's bigness. Like I mentioned above, a movie like this could play well in the next generation DVD formats, and something tells me that that's just what Universal has in mind.

Package

The front cover has a real fiery look with bunch of the cars from the film stationary, but made to look as if they are zooming around in all directions. The back cover shows more cars and other shots from the movie. There is a description of what The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is about, a Special Features list, a cast list and some technical specs. This is one of those DVDs that has a cardboard outer covering over the DVD case. The covers of each are identical.

Final Word

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is a worthy installment into this franchise. While I think The Fast and the Furious that began this series in the early part of the 21st Century captured that lifestyle in a somewhat Easy Rider-type way, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift focuses on that same subculture but sort of looks at how it has evolved. It even goes back to roots of the whole thing somewhat, and that gives this film a look and feel that 2 Fast 2 Furious didn't have.

At the end of the day, I think that there is just enough action, just enough emotion, and just enough present day culture infused into this film to make the work director Justin Lin did stand out.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was released June 3, 2006.